Hi BostonBed,
Your concern about the quality and durability of the materials in the Beautyrest (and other major brands) is justified and as you can see in the guidelines here I would tend to avoid major brand mattresses that use lower quality materials or any mattress where you can’t verify the quality of the materials inside them.
The tutorial post here has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that you will need to make the best possible choices … and know how and why to avoid the worst ones.
You are fortunate to be in the Boston area because there are many good options in the area. The Boston list is in post #2 here.
If you do some careful and objective testing using the testing guidelines in the tutorial post you should have no difficulty finding a mattress that is just as suitable for you (and probably more so) as the mattresses you were looking at in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief) and uses much better quality and more durable materials and has much better “value” as well.
Phoenix