Hi seraphicsiren,
While I can certainly help with “how” to choose … It’s not possible to make specific suggestions or recommendations for either a mattress, manufacturers/retailers, or combinations of materials or components because the first “rule” of mattress shopping is to always remember that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved that are unique to each person to use a formula or for anyone to be able to predict or make a specific suggestion or recommendation about which mattress or combination of materials and components or which type of mattress would be the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort”, firmness, or PPP or how a mattress will “feel” to you or compare to another mattress based on specs (either yours or a mattress), sleeping positions, health conditions, or “theory at a distance” that can possibly be more reliable than your own careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in step 4 of the tutorial) or your own personal sleeping experience (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).
When you can’t test a mattress in person then the most reliable source of guidance is always a more detailed phone conversation with a knowledgeable and experienced retailer or manufacturer that has your best interests at heart and who can help “talk you through” the specifics of their mattresses and the properties and “feel” of the materials they are using (fast or slow response, resilience, firmness etc) and the options they have available that may be the best “match” for you based on the information you provide them, any local testing you have done or mattresses you have slept on and liked or other mattresses you are considering that they are familiar with, and the “averages” of other customers that are similar to you. They will know more about “matching” their specific mattress designs and firmness levels to different body types, sleeping positions, and preferences (or to other mattresses that they are familiar with) than anyone else.
If either you or your husband are in a higher weight range and/or are more sensitive to the deeper and firmer layers in a mattress you may “go through” a thinner top layer more than someone that is in a lighter weight range and you could feel more of the firmness of the base layer underneath it. In this scenario if a mattress feels too firm it could be because you are feeling more of the firmness of the base layer “through” the top layer and having an extra layer of latex on top of the firmer base layer would help to isolate you more from the firmness of the base layer.
On the other hand … if you are in a lighter weight range or you are a back or stomach sleeper then more of what you feel would be the top layer of a mattress and you would feel less of the deeper layers underneath it. In this scenario if a mattress is too firm then choosing a softer top layer would probably be a suitable choice although adding a second layer of latex could also be effective in this case as well.
There is also more information about the pros and cons of the Alexis vs the Eurotop in post #2 here as well.
If you were to purchase a latex topper (either from Sedona Sleep or from another source) and use it on top of the Eurotop then your mattress/topper combination would have a different “feel” from the Alexis (even if the latex was the same ILD as the top layer in either mattress) because you would be sleeping more directly on the latex in the topper rather than sleeping on a quilting layer on top of the latex. There is more about some of the pros and cons of a quilted cover vs a more stretchy knit cover (which are the two main types of covers that you will usually encounter) in post #12 here and the posts it links to.
A separate topper can also “act” a little more independently and “feel” a little softer outside a cover than it will by having the same layer inside the cover (see posts #3 and #4 here and the first page of posts in this topic).
Finally if you need to exchange the topper for a different firmness or you need to return the mattress and/or the mattress/topper combination if in spite of the best efforts of everyone involved your choices don’t turn out as well as you hoped for then the topper may have a different exchange or return policy which can also affect the options you have available after a purchase and any costs involved and the overall “value” of a mattress purchase.
All of the options you are considering would certainly be great quality/value choices.
Once you have narrowed down your options to a list of finalists that are all choices between “good and good” (which you have) and none of them have any lower quality materials or “weak links” in their design (which they don’t) and if at this point there are no clear winners between them (which is usually a good indication that you have done some good research) then you are in the fortunate position that any of them would likely be a suitable choice and post #2 here can help you make a final choice based on your own local testing and/or your more detailed phone conversations about each of them, the firmness and suitability of each one, their prices, your preferences for different types of materials and components, designs, or types and blends of latex, the options you have after a purchase to fine tune the mattress or exchange or return the mattress or individual layers and any costs involved, any additional extras that are part of each purchase, and on “informed best judgement” based on all the other objective, subjective, and intangible parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.
Phoenix