An AIO would be great except I have seahorses. I do massive water changes to keep my herd healthy. My sump is in the basement where I can make water, mix it and pump into the sump without any lifting or carrying. Since its 25 gallon water changes every week I am not giving that up.Or... you should baffle in a return chamber that only holds a few gallons or so.
Also comparing powerheads to return flow in terms of power consumption is not even close, as an extreme example say you can use two MP40's to get 50x turnover in the display, it is going to take WAYYYYYYY more power (and noise) to get that same turnover with a return pump.