Hi cpcm,
The Brooklyn Bedding Essence certainly uses high quality materials (100% natural Dunlop, 100% natural Talalay, and an organic cotton cover quilted with wool) and there are no lower quality materials or weak links in the design.
Yes … the details of their return policy are here and a good return policy can certainly lower or limit the risk of an online purchase.
The Essence uses 3" of 100% natural Talalay on top of 6" of 100% natural Dunlop. There is more about the odor of latex in post #2 here but I don’t know of any real difference between the odor of Talalay latex from Talalay Global (Latex International) and Radium which is the only other producer of Talalay latex or any differences between their 100% natural Dunlop and the other manufacturers of 100% Natural Dunlop.
I’m not sure who you were comparing it to but it would be higher than some and lower than others. There is more about the most important parts of the “value” of a mattress purchase in post #13 here though that can help you make more meaningful value comparisons between the Essence and any of the other finalists you are considering based on all the criteria that are most important to you (including the price of course).
I would keep in mind to be cautious about using other people’s experiences on a mattress (either positive or negative) as a reliable source of information or guidance about how suitable a mattress may be for you and in many cases they can be more misleading than helpful because a mattress that may be a perfect choice for one person in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) may be completely unsuitable for someone else with a different body type, sleeping position, or preferences and sensitivities to sleep on (see post #13 here).
Having said that … hopefully some of the forum members that have purchased the Essence will see your post and share their comments but in the meantime a forum search on Brooklyn Bedding Essence (you can just click the link) will bring up all the forum posts that mention it.
As you probably know Brooklyn Bedding is one of the members here which means that I think very highly of them and they compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, service, and transparency. A forum search on just Brooklyn Bedding will also bring up many hundreds of posts that mention them which include many comments and much more feedback from the members here that have dealt with them over the years.
Phoenix