Hi sunroomsofa,
The first thing I would suggest is to read the steps to finding the best mattress for you in post #1 here. These will greatly improve your odds of finding the best possible mattress in terms of quality and value.
The first step is to eliminate your worst choices (as you can see in the guidelines here) and I would rate the Aria as one of these … even with a significant discount.
There is no way to know this because they don’t list any of the information about what is in it. This is to keep you from making any comparisons with other mattresses and to make sure that the real quality of this mattress isn’t known. Which Sealy it is doesn’t really matter anyway because almost all of them use lower quality materials and have poor value compared to many better choices you have. These are exactly the types overpriced mattresses that use lower quality materials I would avoid.
Almost certainly yes. The polyfoam that they use in the upper layers of their mattresses (the weak link of most mattresses) is lower density and will soften and degrade much more quickly than higher quality materials. To use an analogy … you would be paying real wood prices for particle board covered with veneer and where nobody will tell you what was really under the veneer. They are able to do this because cheap materials can feel great in a showroom (or hotel) because you can’t feel quality and can only know the real value and quality of a mattress by knowing the details of the layers that are in it.
The better options I know of near Chicago are listed in post #2 and #4 here and you are fortunate because we have another member very close by that also has some of the best quality and value in the country … and perhaps more importantly can give you good guidance about the types of mattresses that are best for your circumstances, needs, and preferences and will be more durable for your husbands higher weight.
A detachable pillowtop or a topper can be a good choice because when it wears out faster than the rest of the mattress (the upper layers will wear faster than the deeper layers) … you can just replace it instead of the whole mattress.
Phoenix