Hi KDrew,
Welcome to the Mattress Forum! 
When shopping for a mattress, the first thing I would advise you to do would be to read the mattress shopping tutorial here. I suggest reading it as you would a good book, referring to it and not attempting to memorize things.
To make things easier, 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 (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your own Personal preferences) … 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/BMI range that could compromise the durability and useful life of the mattress (see the durability guidelines here).
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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.
Regarding reviews, I am in agreement with you, and while other people’s comments about the knowledge and service of a particular business can certainly be very helpful, I would always keep in mind that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and I would be cautious about using anyone else’s suggestions, experiences or reviews on a specific mattress (either positive or negative) or review sites in general as a reliable source of information or guidance about how you will feel on the same mattress or how suitable or how durable a mattress may be for you. In many if not most cases they can be more misleading than helpful because a mattress that would be a perfect choice for one person or even a larger group of people in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP may be completely unsuitable for someone else to sleep on (even if they are in a similar weight range). Reviews or other people’s experiences in general won’t tell you much if anything about the suitability, quality, durability, or “value” of a mattress for any particular person (see post #13 here).
Some of the better options or possibilities I’m aware of in the Port Charlotte, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Naples, FL. areas (subject to making sure that any mattress you are considering meets the quality/value guidelines here ) are listed in post #2 here . You can check with the vendors listed there regarding the things that you listed which are important to you and see what they might have to offer.
Phoenix