I'm a big believer in mulch mowing leaves as well, but if you have wet piles laying around the yard it is too late to think about that. Piles should be removed before they kill more grass.
If you are going to roto-till then it can be done anytime the ground isn't frozen and the sooner the better. Chances are your new lawn being roto-tilled in the Spring will mean lots of weeds amid struggling grass, but not necessarily.
If your ground is freezing solid and thawing out by Spring, that should loosen the soil to a worthy degree and possibly relieve compaction issues. You may opt instead to dormant seed now, even with Annual Ryegrass and mulch mow through the Summer; then renovate your lawn in August/Sept. period.
Saving yourself the possibility of everything going wrong because of Spring renovation will be worth it, IMO. :)

Everything I've read here suggests that tilling the yard is *not* something you should consider.

Depending on what you want out of your yard(quality and time) and what type of grass (and how bad it is) you have now there are a lot of course of action.

First step I would recommend to get your soil up to par to ensure grass has a good chance of life. Logan labs is cost effective and quick. Now would be a great time to get a sample sent in when things are slow around here. It will give you a good plan going forward.

Often just good watering practices, mowing properly(frequently and higher), well timed fertilizing, and spraying weeds will turn around a yard in a year.

Tilling will make for a lumpy irregular turf... won't remove your rock problem either. Plus it messes with natural soil ecosystem in a no good way. I could see in a real bad yard doing a core aerate and then top dressing with peat and compost to really get the organic matter and life jump started. Along with a good dose of Milorganite/baystate/oceangro - and cracked corn.

Spraying yard with a soil conditioner (soap...etc) and adding organic material like peat/corn/leaves over time will help soil as well.

Location and current grass type if known will help responses (photos also)

Tilling is unwise and generally unnecessary (although there are exceptions to that rule). It brings up weed seeds, disturbs the natural soil biology, and destroys the established water channels. All that can take a year (or more) to correct itself.

Right now, if the leaves are relatively dry, mow them in. If wet, and not likely to dry out, remove them. They add organic matter to the soil, give the worms something to nibble on during early winter and spring, mulch the soil a touch, and encourage fungi and bacteria that are good for the soil.

Spring seedings are touch and go, and tough to get through the first summer without losing them. Instead, spread your seed before the weather turns to spring (late February to early March in most of Zone 6, but it depends). It'll sprout as soon as it can, and generally doesn't require extra water unless early spring is very dry.

You'll still need to water during summer, and you'll probably want to overseed in mid-August and water to fill in, but at least you'll have some lawn next year.

Where do you live? So far I have not seen anything that would make yours an exception to the "no rototill" rule.

Here's why rototilling is a bad idea:
1. Tillers are monster machines which are hard to control by a human. A tractor can control them but a human cannot. The end result is every time the rotor hits a hard spot, rock, or root, it bucks up out of the ground and leaps ahead. That leaves a spot in the soil with very shallow tillage. Then when the rotor hits a soft spot it tends to slump down and dig down deep. This leaves a deeply tilled spot. When you level off everything at the surface you end up with a firm subsurface which is bumpy. When the fluffy soil on top of the bumpy surface finally settles (in 3 years), it settles down to the profile shape of the bumpy subsurface. You will notice this when you mow because the mower will bounce in and out of the low spots and it will scalp the grass on the high spots. Fixing this later on is a lot of work, but it can be done. It is much better just to not till.

2. Rototilling brings up old weed seeds which have not decomposed. When those hit the surface they will sprout and bring you a crop of weeds.

3. Rototilling stirs up the beneficial microbes that live in your soil. Some of those microbes only live on the surface. Some only live at 1/2-inch deep. Some only live at 2 inches deep. When you stir up all the soil you are sending most of those microbes to the gallows. Fortunately not all of them die and they will repopulate but why go to all the hassle?

Rototilling is only advocated by Scott's and some fly-by-night landscapers. The professionals do not rototill.

When you look at your bare soil, do you see rocks at the surface?

Your soil is not compacted. It is likely very hard, but compaction is a physical thing that rarely happens in a home setting. The term, compaction, is very loosely used around the lawn industry. Hard soil can be fixed by spraying with shampoo at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. (or you can buy what the golf courses use (Cascade) for $75 per gallon.) Spray and give it 2 weeks to show improvement. If you don't see it right away, repeat. It took me 2 tries back in 2011 and it's still working for me. Once you have a healthy turf and healthy soil, it should not become hard again. Oh and after you apply the shampoo, water with one inch of water. Measure 1 inch by placing cat food or tuna cans around the yard and watering until they are full. Time how long that takes because that will be your watering time every time you water.

All good advice, now may I add what I believe to be the exception to the "no till" rule.
Around here we also have red clay with stones in the top layer of soil where the roots are most populous. The clay has very little color and the idea that water pathways exist or that microbial life is thriving, is largely imagination.

What is done for these situations around here is the late Summer tilling begins, and the soil has compost, even grass clippings worked into it over the course of several weeks.
Multiple tillings and rakings over time allowing weeds to germinate then get tilled back in, makes for a perfect seed bed with a good mixture of OM in the soil.
Keep the heavy machinery off of it, and only work it when it is dry enough and your soil should build a beautiful structure with proper watering and drying cycles.
That is my strategy for reforming soil on a more permanent basis. :)

Very heavy or extremely compacted (usually by machinery) soils could be the exception to tilling. So would needing to work in resources immediately, as would lowering pH with added sulfur. Sulfur works much better if tilled in. Although if I needed to do that, I'd use an alternate to elemental sulfur.

I do know people who till their garden soil every year, and then ask me how often I do mine since my gardens flourish. Answer: I've never tilled them and I never will. Even with 40% clay, the soil works better if I let nature take its course...enhanced by lots of added organic material to the tune of a ton (a literal 2,000 pounds) of matter per thousand square feet per year.

Even "impenetrable" clay soils don't absolutely require tillage. You can add OM by top dressing, using shampoo, and letting the worms move in and do their work. It's slower, but works fine.

When I had the rear stone patio put in, the truck was very, very good about restricting itself to one path from front to back. That did, however, compress the soil rather badly in that one pathway. Copious organics brought it back, decompressed the soil over time, and within a year or so you couldn't tell it ever happened.