Hi Nmart,
Buckling column gel is certainly a unique material and is also very durable. It’s one of those materials (much like memory foam) that tend to generate strong feelings either for or against it depending on preferences but for those who like how it feels and performs it can certainly make a great choice. You can see some of my comments about the Intellibed (and other types of buckling column gel) in this topic and in this topic and a forum search on Intelligel (you can just click this) will bring up more about them as well. A forum search on buckling column gel (you can just click this as well) will also bring up more comments and feedback about other versions as well.
For those where the unique properties and “feel” of a buckling column mattress are enough to justify the higher price and if they are a good match for the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you then they can certainly be a suitable choice as long as there are no “weak links” in the mattress in the other materials besides the buckling column gel (see this article and the quality/durability guidelines I would suggest here)
An adjustable bed is more of a “commodity” purchase based on features vs cost commparisons and can be purchased anywhere because they don’t require “testing” like a mattress. Post #3 here and the adjustable bed thread it links to will be helpful in choosing an adjustable bed and also included some sources that you can use for “value references”.
Most foam mattresses and most pocket coil innersprings will be fine on an adjustable bed. Innerspring mattresses that have helical wires or border rods can be customized specifically to be suitable for an adjustable bed but most of them wouldn’t be suitable.
So called “soy foam” is just polyfoam where a small percentage of one of the two main chemicals used to make the foam (the polyol) has been replaced with a soy oil based derivative (see post #2 here). You can use the same quality/density guidelines as regular polyfoam.
Phoenix