Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - Replacing heatpump with C/A unit and heating with electric furnace?

I am buying a house that was built in 1978. It has forced air heat and originally had a heatpump with an electric furnace. Recently the heatpump went out and the owner told me that the contractor wanted to replace the heatpump with a regular central air unit and heat the house strictly on the electric furnace which they did. I was in the house on a 10 degree day and they had it at a toasty 74 degrees and the furnace didn't run excessively so it seems to keep up, my question is should there be a heatpump, or would be beneficial to have a heatpump. I am thinking he did this because it was cheaper and he knew he would be selling the house soon, my question, Is it ok? Is it common?
The funace has 3 20amp circuits in the breaker box and the heatpump had a 30 amp circuit which now had the C/A on it.
I will have the house inspected but I would like other opinions as well.
Thanks

Removing the heat pump and going to straight electric heat will drastically increase the electric bills.
Electric resistance heat has a Coefficient of Performance of 1, based on the fact that one watt equals 3.413 BTUs of heat. For heat pumps, the amount of energy consumed in watts is multiplied by 3.413 and the result is divided into the BTU output to obtain the COP.
so a heat pump with a capacity of 23,400 BTU that uses 2,451 watts to accomplish it:

23,400
------------ = 2.797 COP
2,451 X 3.413


This means that the heat pump is almost 3 times as efficient as electric resistance heat. Today's heat pumps are getting more efficient by the day.
Most 14 SEER heat pumps are rated around a COP of 3.3 at 47 degrees and 2.2 at 17 degrees.
So that means even at 15 degrees below freezing the heat pump is over twice as efficient as electric resistance heating.

By taking out the heat pump, it will triple your heating cost on average.
I hope this info helps you out.

Yes that helped greatly, I think I will try to get them to either A.Come down on the price or B. put in a heat pump like its supposed to have. The house is borderline too much money already.

Like said : We tell the people that you can save about a third on your fuel bill. With the heat pump over just an electric furnace. If you have it changed and go for a seer of 15 or more you can get a $300 TAX credit from the IRS.
You might want to go http://warmair.net just to compare fuel cost for where you are. See if the electric is the low cost fuel there. If so for sure go for the heatpump