Hi Bobbydavis,
People respond differently to different comfort materials and innerspring combinations, so it’s not necessarily a surprise that a new combination might not meet with your specific needs. Assuming that your old mattress was a more “traditional” innerspring product using polyfoams in the comfort layers (pillowtop is nota comfort designation, just a manner of design and assembly), you made a change to a product using a pocketed spring unit (which may allow for more travel than your old mattress if it was a LFK spring unit), and then you switched to something using memory foam in the upper comfort layers, which is less supportive and has a higher hysteresis (energy absorbing) than normal polyfoam. So you changed a few variables here. Combined with your better experience on “hotel beds”, it’s reasonable to assume you may not have an affinity for a memory foam style mattress, or at least something this plush (all memory foam would be a softer lower ILD) in the comfort layers.
Memory foam isn’t generally the most breathable material, and if you’re sinking into this mattress more it will exhibit more insulating qualities, and combined with your higher BMI you will sink through these layers more deeply, exposing less of your surface area to heat exchange, so it is logical to assume that you’d sleep a bit warmer on something like this.
Post #3 here has more information and suggestions about higher BMIs that is worth reading.
Memory foam tends to be one of the better materials for “absorbing” motion transfer, but you may wish to investigate the bed frame you are using, as that can be one of the larger culprits in “amplifying” movement in the mattress. Metal bed frames tend to be the worst, with heavier-duty headboard/footboard bed sets and platform beds being more solid and tending to help minimize partner disturbance.
As far as other people’s experiences on this mattress, that really wouldn’t have any bearing on your comfort on the product. You can find just as many comments that people sleep very comfortably on the same product. 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). Your own personal experience is what I would trust the most.
Phoenix