Hi cgriffin,
I switched your posts to a new topic so they wouldn’t get mixed up inside a more “general” topic.
There is more about the most important parts of the value of a mattress purchase in post #13 here that can help you make more meaningful comparisons between the “value” of your finalists.
Assuming that you aren’t in a higher weight range … all of your finalists except one would make good quality value choices (see the guidelines here).
Yes … I would avoid any mattress with more than “around an inch or so” of lower quality/density materials in the comfort layers and I would be very cautious about choosing a mattress with 3 lb memory foam (see post #12 here which is probably the post you read and would still apply).
Once you are down to final choices (see post #2 here) that are between “good and good” and there are no clear winners between them then the only way to choose between them would be “best judgement” based on your phone conversations with each of them and all the objective, subjective, and intangible parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you (including the prices of course and the options you have after a purchase if your choice doesn’t work out as well as you hoped for)
Outside of BIAB … they are all good quality/value choices I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase any of them if they were a good match for the criteria that were most important to me.
Phoenix