Hi alignme,
As you know … “feel” is very subjective and relative to each person. You can read a little more about “matching” one mattress to another in post #9 here and while there would likely be other mattresses that were equivalent in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) that had better quality or value … none of them would be exactly the same. Some of the iComforts use reasonable quality materials but as you know even these are are not the best value so purchasing a mattress that was exactly the same would mean purchasing the iComfort itself. In this case I would at least choose one of the models that didn’t use more than an inch of lower quality materials in the upper layers of the mattress so you had some reasonable assurance that the “feel” you liked would be more long lasting.
Your own side by side testing is really the only way to know whether a mattress that has a different design, materials, and layering is “equivalent” in terms of how it feels to you.
As long as the mattress and the people on it are within the weight limits of the adjustable bed you will be fine. I don’t think that latex itself would be an issue even though it’s heavier than polyfoam (although it’s about the same as memory foam). The adjustable bed thread here may be helpful.
Post #2 here has some of the “theory” involved but they are only generic and not specific to any individual. Only your own personal testing and experience can really know whether a mattress is suitable for you. Theory at a distance is one of the least effective ways to choose a mattress and will quickly become so complex as you learn how all the different specs interact together that you can end up with “paralysis by analysis”. For example the type of eggcrate (the shape of the peaks and the depth of the convoluting) can make a significant difference and these are not specs that most people would have access to or have the ability to understand. When you test a mattress for PPP then you don’t have to worry about the “comfort specs” or the design, only about the quality of the materials (and latex is good quality). I’m happy to speak to the quality of materials or identify any weak links in a mattress but comfort and support choices or the types of materials you prefer are a personal preference based on your own personal testing.
HR polyfoam is a great material in the right design but I wouldn’t choose it because it was lighter. It would be comparable in some ways to latex in terms of performance but latex would still have the edge in durability (although both would be durable materials). Some types of HR polyfoam can actually be denser than some firmness levels of latex although most of them are under 3 lbs/ft3. I really wouldn’t make the weight of the foams an issue unless you were over the weight limits for a particular adjustable bed.
That depends on who builds it. If you are designing it yourself and you have years of experience and the technical knowledge it can require it could work but I would normally suggest working with a manufacturer who already knows what you would otherwise need to learn. Even all the learning in the world would have little meaning without actual experience so that the specs have meaning to you based on your actual experience. Even the most experienced manufacturers often design a mattress that ends up feeling very different from what they imagined when they first thought of the design.
A two sided mattress is more durable than a one sided mattress … even with a durable material like latex. The tradeoff is that a two sided mattress is more limited to designs that don’t have thicker comfort or transition layers so there isn’t as much soft materials on the bottom of the mattress and a one sided mattress has more design flexibility. There are many manufacturers who use relatively thin layers of polyfoam or other materials as a quilting layer because there are many people who prefer the “surface feel” of a less resilient material vs sleeping directly on the latex. As long as any quilting layers are in the range of an inch or so it won’t have a significant effect on durability in most cases. If the quilting layers or other layers in the top of the mattress are around 2" or more then I would be more cautious in terms of durability and would want to know the density of the foam. There are many “so called” latex mattresses on the market which use thick layers of relatively low quality polyfoam in the comfort layers which I would avoid.
If a mattress (latex or otherwise) is two sided then it would benefit from flipping and if its one sided than you can’t flip it although you can still rotate it.
Phoenix