Hi kayla,
While nobody can provide specific advice because there are too many unknowns and variables involved and only you can feel what you feel on a mattress … I can certainly provide some more generic information that can help you decide which of the options or changes that are available to you may have the best chance of success.
Post #2 here has more about the most common symptoms that people generally experience on a mattress and some of the reasons that can cause them.
There is more about primary or deep support and secondary or surface support and their relationship to pressure relief and firmness in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may help you visualize and understand what good support/alignment and pressure relief “looks like”.
Neck issues are most commonly connected to a pillow that doesn’t keep your head and neck in good alignment in all your sleeping positions.
It’s unfortunate that you only have a month to try different configurations because this doesn’t give you much time to sleep on your initial combination for very long or to try different combinations for more than a few days which may not be enough to be able to decide whether they are a good match for you because there will generally be an adjustment period when you sleep on a sleeping surface that is very different from what you are used to sleeping on (see post #3 here and post #2 here). I would normally try an initial combination for a couple of weeks at a minimum whenever possible so that you have time to get used to it and after that I would try each different combination for at least a few days so that you can confirm that how you sleep or any “symptoms” you experience on each new combination are more of a pattern that “points to” your longer term experience rather than just an anomaly that you only experience for a day or two.
Your wool topper may be interfering with the ability of the latex to contour to the shape of your body and could be making your mattress feel firmer rather than softer (see post #8 here and the posts it links to about wool toppers). It may be worth trying your mattress without the wool topper to see if it makes any difference.
This is something that only you can decide based on your personal experience but you mentioned that there isn’t a return policy so it seems to me that you would have little to lose by trying different combinations over the course of your trial period or even some of the other options that you would have available after your trial period is over (such as rearranging layers or adding a topper if you need some extra softness) before you decide to give up on the mattress completely.
As you can see from the previous links I posted … firmer doesn’t necessarily mean better support and pressure relief is also an important part of a sleeping system. If you slept well on the softer top layer and the only issue was your neck pain (which is most commonly a pillow issue) then it may be well worth trying your initial combination once again.
The choice of materials is always a personal preference rather than a “better/worse” choice. There are a wide range of firmness levels and designs with every type of mattress and material and regardless of which type of mattress or materials you prefer … some mattresses may work well for you and others of the same general type that uses the same materials may be completely unsuitable for you to sleep on. This would depend more on the design of the particular mattress and how well it matches your specific needs and preferences in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) than it does on the type of materials that it uses. There is more about some of the differences between latex and memory foam in post #2 here but your own personal experience will be the best way to decide which type of materials you tend to prefer.
Again … I would keep in mind that when you are first sleeping on a mattress that is very different from what you are used to that there will usually be an adjustment period during the first few weeks.
It’s very common yes.
It would make sense to me to try it for more than a few days IMO and see if the neck issues can be “fixed” with a different pillow.
These are the types of decisions that only you can decide what to do but if it was me I would certainly do whatever I could to try and make a new mattress “work” before walking away from a purchase that large.
At least that will give you a little longer to test your current configuration.
Again … I would always keep in mind that you need “enough” firmness in the deeper layers to “stop” the heavier parts of your body from sinking down too far and “enough” softness in your upper layers to “allow” your shoulders and the lighter parts of your body to sink in enough to fill in the gaps in your sleeping profile and provide the pressure relief that you need.
These are questions that can only be answered based on your own experience and on the effect of time and the different combinations you are trying and whether your symptoms seem to be diminishing, staying the same, or getting worse … but at least you have the chance to make some fine tuning adjustments to your mattress so you can make a “best judgement” decision about whether you will get used to it over time based on your actual experience.
While thicker mattresses can be a good idea with heavier weights to keep you from bottoming out … once again I would keep in mind that PPP and good alignment comes from the combination of layers in the mattress … not the thickness itself.
Side sleepers generally need more thickness/softness in the upper layers of their mattress than back or stomach sleepers to provide good pressure relief but the key is always “just enough” in terms of thickness/softness so that there is less risk of compromising good alignment … particularly in your other sleeping positions.
Hopefully this has helped with some of the “detective work” or trial and error that may be necessary to decide on which configuration has the best chance of success.
Phoenix