Hi alevinemi.
I am sorry to hear to of your son’s condition and I understand that this imposes great limits on your time, unfortunately there are no shortcuts to investing the time that is needed to find a suitable system that would meet all the criteria of your personal value equation. Neither I nor anyone else can feel what you feel on a mattress and the only reliable approach is to personally test a mattress and gather the appropriate tools listed in the mattress shopping tutorial and information needed to help you make an informed decision.
You are correct that going to local stores and testing mattresses in person is one of the best ways to get an initial feel of the mattress and eliminate any unsuitable ones. As long as you do this … you do not “have to go on ratings and reviews” but instead rely your own testing and on finding the specifications you need to know to assess the useful life of a particular mattress, and have a detailed conversation with a mattress manufacturer /retailer that has your best interest at heart. As far as relying on reviews or ratings…regardless of the criteria they use for their reviews and as you pointed out they amalgamate mattress reviews from all around the internet (such as the one you indicated) and then “rate” mattresses (and other products) based on them. These “muddied averages” have very little meaning and consolidating them into a larger batch of data and attempting to pass that off as homologated is a textbook example of garbage in – garbage out. A larger pool of data rendered by those who are unqualified to make an educated long-term analysis of a product isn’t a tract I advise to use to select a mattress. It is unfortunate that there is an entire industry created around “reviews” and procuring “reviews” and IMO I would give a very low percentage of importance to any site that operates that way.
I think you may be misunderstanding the difference between an analysis and a review. They are very different. While I/ we certainly don’t claim to be unbiased … at least my/our biases are based on research and fact rather than unsubstantiated stories supported by heavy advertising. Materials have certain qualities regardless of how they may feel. I am a big advocate of getting factual information before buying a mattress … or at the very least buying from someone who knows the facts rather than being trained in the stories that a customer is most likely to believe.
Stating that this site collects membership fees from manufacturers who have passed very stringent requirements (here is a list of the criteria for becoming a member of The Mattress underground, somehow makes the site here biased or the information less than accurate is simply cynical. Spending only 10 minutes on this site it will be completely evident that quality componentry and products are mentioned, and sometimes even defended, regardless of the site membership. The goal here has always been to educate versus promote. Running this website takes enormous amounts of time and it is not a charity, and just because other sites derive income from side sources (such as Google ads) in no way validates their information as factual or accurate. To assume such is a logical fallacy.
I am the first to recognize that there is no such thing as “gospel” when it comes to mattresses which is why I welcome posts that “challenge” my opinions and thoughts. This is how we all learn and keep our learning curves going. This is also the very reason I started this site and is exactly why I provide the reasons behind what I post rather than making blanket statements with no substance behind them to support what I am saying. I am the last person who wants anyone to believe me or you or anyone based on “faith” and the goal of the site is to provide the knowledge that either connects consumers with “mattress people” who already know what they would otherwise need to learn and sell high quality/value mattresses or to provide them with accurate information and bypass the more biased and misleading information that tends to come from people who only promote or recognize the value of what they sell to the detriment of all other choices (no matter where they may come from). In other words … the goal is to inform and “empower” people to make up their own mind based on facts and meaningful comparisons instead of the overwhelming amount of misleading and inaccurate information that comes from all sides in this industry.
This is also the reason that this site will never be a review site (there isn’t a section for reviews) because it will always be more focused on educating the members here with more “fact based” information than on encouraging them to repeat the same mistakes that consumers have been making for many years … which includes warning them that reading or “counting” reviews as a reliable source of research can be among the worst ways to choose a mattress.
Just to make clear as well … I have no “standing” outside of the information on this site … and I would prefer that it always stays that way … because I would much rather that people learn to rely on information that they can verify for themselves than rely on the so called “standing” of a person that provides it. That way they can come to their own conclusions about what the “preponderance of the evidence” points to and make their own “best judgement choices” free of the influences of others that are more focused on emotional gratification than on providing accurate or meaningful information. This is what real research and due diligence is all about.
I hope this brings more clarity and completes your picture of The Mattress Underground.
I look forward to any comments you may have and if after some showroom testing you manage to narrow down your options to a few that are suitable for you, then I or another Expert Member of the site would be happy to assist you.
Phoenix