Also looking for a quality product at a budget price, I decided to try a 100% synthetic continuous pour topper made by Mountain Top Foam.
Mountain Top uses yet another grading measure, detailed by Phoenix here. The Mountain Top site has some good info on their process–you can see exactly where their holes come from. I found the video pretty interesting.
Spindle (www.spindlemattress.com) sells these toppers quite reasonably, and Neal is great: he knows his product and I really appreciate his approach–he will go into as much detail as you want, you just stop him when it gets too deep. He recently explained the need for ventilation based on the first law of thermodynamics! (i.e. to avoid condensation). When I asked about the holes being shallower on one side than the other, he explained that is due to the way the 3" layers are split from a 6" core. I don’t think he allows returns of opened products, but I was willing to risk $200 (queen) to try one of these, and though I’ve only had two nights on it, so far I’m quite pleased.
If you have an Ikea nearby, you can try mattresses containing the same foam (Matrand and Myrbacka), though as best I could tell, it’s all the firmer C3 (see this post and this post) and of course feels quite different when thicker and on a polyfoam base.
So, more options to be confused by ;).
As for the rubber trees, I would of course jump at the chance but alas, San Diego isn’t the rain forest so I will have to pass!
Mark