Hi Ceejay,
The most important suggestion I could give you (besides the steps in post #10 here and the information it links to) is to use some local outlets to narrow down which materials you tend to prefer in both the comfort layers and the support layers of a mattress (treat them independently). From the sounds of it though … your preferences lean towards faster responding materials and away from slower response materials although there may be an “in between” that you like as well because several of the choices you mentioned have memory foam (which is a slow response material) in the comfort layers (such as the Elation and the iComfort). The prices and “value” of the major brands in any price range … even their better quality mattresses … are not indicative of the prices you would pay for similar mattresses from smaller manufacturers or independent brands that used similar or better materials.
There may be some local outlets that are closer to you and even if they don’t have particularly good value … they may provide some good testing grounds as preparation for a trip to Oklahoma City. As long as the “specs” of a mattress are available from the store (not just partial but every layer) or are available online soyou will know what you are testing … then they can be useful for testing different materials and combinations to see which you prefer. When you are testing I would think in terms of the materials you are feeling in the comfort layers and support layers and do your best to differentiate them rather than thinking in terms of testing a mattress “as a whole” so you get a better sense of how each material performs and is different from other materials used in the same parts of the mattress. In other words … think in terms of testing materials rather than mattresses
Latex has many different variations from very soft to very firm or from “jiggly” to solid as a rock depending on the type of latex, the layers in the mattress, and the firmness of the layers. Few if any of them though would justify an $8000 price tag IMO (unless there were other factors besides just the latex involved like a hidden cache of gold that comes with the mattress) and you may not have even been testing the feel of latex itself if it had polyfoam in either the quilting or comfort layers over the latex. There are many mattresses that are sold as “latex mattresses” at very inflated prices or that use lower quality materials in the upper layers of the mattress (the layers that you feel the most). The key is to find out what is in the mattress you are testing.
$8000 mattresses can pay for a lot of great vacations somewhere along the supply chain between the manufacturer and you.
If you let me know where in OK you are … I may be able to point you to any better “testing” options I may be aware of that are closer to you in preparation for a trip to Oklahoma Mattress (which as you probably know I think very highly of, are members of this site, and have some of the best quality/value in the country).
Phoenix