Hi mjobtx,
I would use the results of your own careful and objective testing on a mattress as a much more reliable guideline for what works best for you than anyone else’s experience on a mattress. What is “much too soft” for one person can be “much too firm” for the next and each person is different. I would also make sure that you use the testing guidelines in the tutorial post and spend more than a few minutes testing a mattress. I would also keep in mind that it’s much easier to soften up a mattress that is too firm with a topper than to make a mattress that is too soft any firmer (which would require removing and replacing the foam that is too soft or thick). I would also make sure you talk with any manufacturer and are comfortable with the options you have after a mattress purchase just in case your sleeping experience is different from what you expected and you need to make any changes or do any “fine tuning” with the mattress.
Warranties only cover defects in a mattress (which will tend to happen very early in the life of a mattress) and don’t say anything about the quality of the materials in a mattress and have very little to nothing to do with the useful life of a mattress (see post #174 here). They don’t cover the loss of comfort and support that is the main reason people will need to buy a new mattress so it’s much more important to know the type and quality/durability of all the materials inside a mattress (see this article) than to use the length of a warranty as an indication of the quality of the materials or the useful life of a mattress.
You are right that one isn’t “better” than another … they are a preference choice and are just different. Post #6 here has more about the different types and blends of latex and post #7 here has more about the difference between how they feel and perform but the best way to know which one you would prefer is with your own personal testing or experience. It would be like trying to decide whether you prefer apples or oranges without having ever tried either one of them.
If you follow the steps in the tutorial post one at a time and have narrowed your options down to finalists that are all choices between “good and good” then your final choice would depend on the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you and your “educated best judgement”.
I would tend to avoid trying to make this kind analysis when you don’t have the personal experience to “translate” what you are analyzing into your own “real life” experience because it can drive you crazy and you will always be on the edge of “information overload” and “paralysis by analysis”. While it’s true that if everything else is equal that Dunlop will tend to feel firmer than Talalay in the same ILD, thickness, and mattress design for most people if you compress it more than 25% (which is the compression depth that ILD is tested), there are probably enough other differences in the designs of two different mattresses you are comparing in most cases that everything else probably won’t be equal and some of the other differences between them may contribute more to any differences you feel than the type of latex.
Phoenix