> Plus you then also need to get them all to rotate so that you can get the efficiency of normal flight.

Not when you simply don't use them for horizontal flight. You just shut the VTOL hatches and forget that you aren't a conventional airplane until you want to land but there isn't an airstrip.

Winged operation has to be efficient, no doubt about that. But hovering does not need much endurance when it's only for getting away from the ground and setting down.

Electric has the power density, even more so when you don't need the power for a long time (heat buildup, no need for an equilibrium). Electric suffers from energy density, but that's where the winged mode comes in (old fashioned jet turbine, with the generator slightly larger than usual so that you'll have full batteries for the short landing hover)