Hi SleepySuzan,
It seems to me that you are doing great research and perhaps most importantly dealing with knowledgeable manufacturers that are giving you good information based on many years of experience. You are fortunate to be where you are and have so many good options available to you.
You are certainly in a place where you have eliminated all the worst possibilities and all your final choices are good ones which means that I don’t think you could really make a “mistake” with any of them. The only thing missing is I would want to confirm that the density of the aqua gel foam although as you mentioned and given that you are dealing with a good local manufacturer I would tend to think that it was good quality. The rest of the materials are certainly good quality.
This is much more “typical” of good smaller manufacturers and is far more valuable to me than a typical warranty where the exclusions protect the manufacturer more than the consumer. The kind of service and integrity that you have experienced is also the reason that I suggest dealing with smaller independent manufacturers that are genuinely concerned with the quality and value of their product and their local reputation more than their profit on a “sale at any cost”.
Overall I’m truly impressed with the research you have done and the quality of the choices you have. I only wish that all the different areas of North America had these kind of choices available.
I’m looking forward to hearing about what you end up deciding.
Phoenix