I'm another who says go for the cows milk. I was still BFing DS2 a couple of times a day when I began to "ease" him into a little cows milk (very slightly watered down to start with). He would have been about 11 months at the time. He was happy with the taste, and over a couple of weeks I stopped adding any water. Not suggesting you or anyone else needs to water it down a tad - I just found that approach worked for him. Having said that, I give DS2 full fat yoghurt and cheese most days (plus other "normal" food, so he doesn't have that much cow's milk. At most, even now that we stopped BFing, he has max 120mml twice a day.
DS1 was hooked on formula (stopped BFing 13 months, but he then had formula for another 12 months) - took AGES to get him off that an onto cow's milk. So I decided DS2 wouldn't have formula at all (though we did BF 15 months).
Both my boys drink heaps of water too - I prefer to keep them hydrated with water over and above anything else.