First of all, I totally sympathize and I'm sorry all this happened.

Second, I have to agree with you just picking up a whole new furnace. They've changed a lot in the last twenty years, and a new one will likely be more energy efficient, saving you on heating bills and (hopefully) repair costs by not dinging you a few hundred here and there every few years.

My wife and I had to replace our furnace not long after moving into our house when it quit working. When doing so, we discovered the unit we had was far too big for the size house we have, which was putting additional wear and tear on the equipment from starting up, running for a few minutes, then shutting down because it detected the temperature was where it needed to be...then starting up again a few minutes later when the temperature dropped, etc...

New unit is smaller, more efficient, filters are easier to find (and less expensive), and we have a service contract which gets us twice-yearly tune-ups and massive discounts should we require any type of repairs. Yeah, it was expensive, but in the long run, it's totally worth it in my opinion.