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Looking for some input from the Pelican brain trust-

Our home is about a hour North of Seattle, very temperate weather wise, it can dip to the teens now and then and we get a few days in the 90s.

Current set up is forced air, 14 vents with 3 returns for 2300 sq ft, 2 stories with bedrooms all upstairs.

Furnace is 2008 natural gas powered York Affinity 80K BTU with variable flame and fan speed.
Summer months I lug the in-window 110V AC units to a downstairs mid house location and the other goes in the master bedroom.

Current spend is $1400 a year for gas, $1k for electricity, our water and stove are also natural gas, that cost drops to about $20 a month in summer.

I want whole house AC and better heating costs.
3 bids so far-

First company is pretty small and local, they suggest an AC unit outside on a pad vented into existing ducting, replace the furnace with a 60K BTU unit, $15.5 to $16.5K

Second bid is from a large regional out fit, they suggest installing a Heat pump on a pad outdoors, replacing the furnace- $26K

Third is a small local company, lots of experience and the only one that not only wanted house size, vent and return count but also said to turn up the furnace to 85, let get to full rip then go to each vent and see how to flows are. They were very different, which I was aware of since we have been here 35 years and bought it new.

His suggestion is to add mini splits one on the wall head unit for the main downstairs living area with the condenser mounted to the wall outside and lines run up into the attic to feed ceiling mounted cassettes in our bedroom and the room my wife uses as a gym,
all of which have their own thermostats and remote.

He also suggested a complete rebuild and re location of the heating ducts starting with a 24" trunk that has 4 feeds off it then reduce it to 18" for 6 feeds, then 12" for the last batch to improve flows.
He also said keep the furnace, it will almost never run.
He comes in at $24K

Given these options what are your thoughts?

Would you suggest some other approach?