Hi chuck,
[quote]never thought buying a new mattress would be this hard.
have it boiled down to 3. S&F mid range, Saatva, or Serta approx $1200.
Any advice? [/quote]
The first place I would start your research is the mattress shopping tutorial here (either the shorter or longer version) which has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that you will need to make the best possible choice … and know how and why to avoid the worst ones. I would avoid the major brands such as Stearns & Foster and Serta (see the guidelines here).
You can see some thoughts and feedback about Saatva in post #1 here and the rest of the topic and a forum search on Saatva (you can just click the link) will bring up more comments and feedback about them as well. In very general terms for most people it would be a “better than average” quality/value choice compared to most of the mainstream mattresses made by the major manufacturers but it wouldn’t be in the same “quality/value” range as many of the other options that most of the members here would know about as a result of the information on the site.
Phoenix