Feedback on theme for SEO

Hi There,

I have a blog that is currently live that I set-up using the Themify base theme. I am ok with how it appears visually but the site seems to run quite slow and I have been looking into having the theme speed (goal is 2 – 3 seconds) up by a team of developers. They have quoted me an amount to do this as well as make some SEO tweaks:
Remove Inline CSS
7. Minimize HTML files
8. minimize JS Files
9. CSS not minimized.

10. Remove inline JavaScript.
but what I am wondering is whether this is the best approach or whether I would be better changing to a genesis framework theme as I have read really good things about this. Just wondering what you think would be the best approach from an SEO perspective as I am at a bit of a loss with how to proceed.

Thanks!!