Hi LenF,
Every layer and component in a mattress will affect every other layer and component in a mattress and the mattress as a whole so the only way to know for certain whether any mattress is a good “match” for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP will be based on your own careful testing or your own personal experience.
While knowing the specs that can affect the quality and durability of the layers and components in a mattress is always important … unless you have a great deal of knowledge and experience with different types of mattress materials and components and their specs and different layering combinations and mattress designs and how they combine together and can translate them into your own “real life” experience that can be unique to you (which would generally be a very small percentage of people) … I would tend to avoid using complex specifications to try and predict how a mattress will feel or perform for you. When you try and choose a mattress based on complex combinations of specs that you may not fully understand or only based on specs for single layers or components that may not be as relevant or meaningful as you believe it is then the most common outcome is “information overload” and “paralysis by analysis”. Even the best mattress designers in the industry are often surprised at what a mattress they design “should have felt like” based on the specs when they design it and what it “actually feels like” when they test out their new design.
“Support” is often misunderstood because the goal of a “supportive” mattress is to keep the spine and joints in good alignment and this requires the type of contouring support that allows some parts of the body to sink in more (softer) and some parts of the body to sink in less (firmer) and this will vary on an individual basis. There is more about primary or “deep” support and secondary or “surface” support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the “roles” of different layers in a mattress in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may also be helpful in clarifying the difference between “support/alignment” and “comfort/pressure relief” and “feel” and how they interact together.
In its simplest form choosing the “best possible” mattress for any particular person really comes down to FIRST finding a few knowledgeable and transparent retailers and/or manufacturers (either locally or online) that sell the types of mattresses that you are most interested in that are in a budget range you are comfortable with and that you have confirmed will provide you with the all the information you need about the materials and components inside the mattresses they sell so you will be able to make informed choices and meaningful comparisons between mattresses and then …
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Careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in the tutorial) to make sure that a mattress is a good match for you in terms of “comfort”, firmness, and PPP … and/or that you are comfortable with the options you have available to return, exchange, or “fine tune” the mattress and any costs involved if you can’t test a mattress in person or aren’t confident that your mattress is a suitable choice.
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Checking to make sure that there are no lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress you are considering relative to your weight range that could compromise the durability and useful life of the mattress.
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Comparing your finalists for “value” based on #1 and #2 and all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.
Phoenix