We have started to search for a mattress and it is the most frustrating experience I may have ever had in my life!

If other big ticket items were not comparable from store A to store B, people would go insane. Imagine a base Ford Focus at one dealer has an entirely different name at another car dealer! It is what the mattress retailers do and get away with it. I had one retailer say and this is a quote, "it is done to really protect the stores from a shopper going from store to store trying to negotiate the best price." What!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Isn't that what happens in a capitalist business model? My customers are always shopping me.

Thirty years ago I had a client that owned a mattress making shop. He told me that the time to make a mattress was minimal and the raw materials cost was minimal. So why am I seeing $2,000, $3,000 or higher mattress pieces? High prices and you can not even comparison shop.

This is a rigged game from the get-go and I am not enjoying it .....nope not one bit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah yes, the "Bill Gates" method of business. Keep improving and build in a kind of obsolescence so people have to buy more often...

Here's the facts:  PU foam dies.  IME, within about three months, if that.  It might look okay, feel okay to your hand, but it is not supportive anymore.  10 years out of a mattress?  I wish!!!!
Best option(latex mattresses don't work for me either...they are too boingy)is to find a reputable, independant, quality mattress maker and have one made.  Ideally the foam will be removable if you have it in the bed. They make mattresses with cotton batting these days too, like they used to.
If you have a mattress you like, but it is worn out, you could try cutting it open and finding out what's inside... what works for you.  There are several different types of springs, different box springs, and layers above. 
I have cut my latest mattress open and exchanged one foam for another repeatedly.  I think my problem is the springs are individual marshall units, and they don't seem to support my heavier butt as well as I need.  Last night I put a rather firm piece of plastic on top of the coils only in the middle.  Not so much back pain, but my hips didn't appreciate it.  Sigh.  One day I will figure this all out.
I did just speak with a nice man in Santa Cruz at Bay Bed and Mattress.  They might be able to help me.
kait