Hi mjwm
Tempurpedic wasn’t purchased but they did purchase Sealy although it was more like a merger in its actual effect.
Softness and firmness and their relationship to support are quite subjective and relative to each person and their body type and sleeping positions so support means different things to different people. The Tempurpedic Cloud Luxe uses their 7 lb memory foam in the middle transition layer which is softer, has a higher support factor (compression modulus), and is more contouring than their 5.3 lb memory foam so it’s not unusual that for some people and body types it would feel more supportive. There is more about primary or “deep” support and secondary or “surface” support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the “roles” of different layers in a mattress in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may also be helpful in clarifying the difference between “support” and “pressure relief” and “feel”
Having said all that … It’s certainly very possible that the overall quality/density of the materials in the Tempurpedic mattresses has gone down (and I suspect that it has at least in some of their newer mattresses) and it’s also true that they are no longer as transparent about the quality/density of the materials in their mattresses as they used to be years ago so if they did make changes to the quality/density of their materials then it wouldn’t be easy for consumers to find out. While I normally suggest avoiding them (along with all the other major brands) because I don’t consider them to be a very good value purchase compared to many other mattresses made by other manufacturers that use similar or even better quality materials and sell in much lower budget ranges … I haven’t heard any specific indications from retailers that sell them that would cause me to suspect that they have been having quality control issues on a larger scale.
Phoenix