Hi Rockindaddy,
While I certainly agree with you about the value and lower risk of a local purchase or at least local testing of different materials before making an online purchase … in all fairness there is more to this story. A new mattress will always feel firmer than a floor model that has already broken in and your comments would apply to any new mattress to differing degrees. I would be somewhat concerned if a new memory foam mattress didn’t feel firmer when it was new because this can be an indication that it will quickly become too soft. A mattress that uses higher density and higher quality foams such as those that are in the Regalis or the Tempurpedic Rhapsody can often take 90 days to soften to its longer term “feel”. Confusing comfort with quality or not taking into account that all mattresses have an initial break in period and that any new mattress purchase also involves an adjustment period (see post #2 here and post #2 here) is one of the most common mistakes that consumers can make. It’s also one of the reasons that that online reviews that are mostly about the “comfort” of a mattress can be so misleading because one person’s soft can be another person’s firm (see post #4 here).
Phoenix