Air Conditioning FAIL

We have had unbelievably bad luck with appliances at our house even though none of them are very old. :P  We have had furnace issues a few times already and discovered that something is not quite right about the way that it was installed, but it still functioned fairly well.  Now our air conditioner stopped working.  When the repairman came out, he diagnosed the issue as a coil inside the house that would cost around $1700 to replace.  Our A/C system is 7 years old, the repair would be expensive, we have known issues with our existing furnace, and there are several federal, state, and local utility rebates currently available for installing high efficiency HVAC systems, so we decided to replace everything now even though it would cost a lot.  We bought a new high efficiency heat pump, furnace, and humidifer (we did not previously have a humidifer tied in with our HVAC system) and will qualify for $1500 in rebates/tax credits.  What was really interesting (and worked out hugely in our favor) is that the sales representatives from two of the companies we got quotes from know each other from working together in the past and were insanely competitive with one other for our business.  Trying to win our business clearly became a personal rather than a business battle.  One of the sales reps would decrease their estimate and throw something new into the quote (extended maintenance agreement, upgraded filter, humidifer, duct cleaning), then we'd get a call from the other who would one up their competitor, and this went on...and on....and on.  Really to the point that it was getting ridiculous.  In the end, we purchased the system for somewhere around $1300 less than the original estimate and also received:  5 year maintenance agreement (twice a year), free whole house duct cleaning, a 15 year warranty, and a humidifier tied in with the furnace.  Even though we didn't really initiate these "negotiations", the sales rep that we ended up deciding to use said that the next time he's planning to make a major purchase, he's going to hire me to negotiate a deal for him!