A FWD with worthwhile winter tires is worth more than AWD or 4x4 with useless tires when snow comes. But of course it's your call on what you buy. If, as the case seems to be, the Patriot would be a backup vehicle anyway for tougher situations where even a FWD with winter tires might struggle a bit, maybe the buyback and rebuilt option would work for you as you wouldn't need it to get to work during the time it would be in the shop, and during that time maybe you can afford to get some tires like Cooper AT3's that would ensure the AWD/4x4 hybrid system would be properly useful in the winter. I don't know if you had all seasons, winter tires, or all-terrains of some sort on it or not already, but I know AT3's in 215/65R17 were $700-$750ish for 5 of them with a basic steelie for the spare all installed and everything at a Discount Tire about 2 years ago. That's probably gone up since, and I'd imagine it would need new tires after the recent incident.
