We just bought a mattress a few months ago! After looking around quite a bit, we landed on a Wink bed and like it a lot. Even the dogs sleep soundly through the night on it lol, whereas on our old bed (just a basic mattress firm generic brand) they were pretty restless and would wake us up moving a lot. I was planning on getting a topper for whatever bed we got regardless, but after sleeping on it for a while, I don't feel it really needs one. That may change just because I like a nice pillow-y cloud feel when I sleep, though I do think the mattress on its own meets that criteria already.

We got the pillowtop medium-firm option for ourselves, but from the research I did, that might depend more on your weight as to what you find comfortable? Like, lighter people would find softer mattresses more comfortable, whereas heavier people may prefer firmer mattresses, just because those body types require different amounts of support. We picked the medium firm option because we're both in the 150-200 lbs range and find it suits us nicely. But definitely research what is recommended for your own weight range.

We liked that Wink had a good 120 night trial period and responsive customer service, so we could return it if we didn't like it. So I'd definitely recommend that whoever you buy from meets those criteria above anything else.

Hope that helps! Researching mattresses can be a nightmare because of the absolute corrupt nature of the whole industry (companies not allowing people to review their mattresses if they ever give negative reviews on other mattresses, for example), so I wish you luck.

EDIT: As far as BIFL goes, we're obviously not sure about that yet, but plan to do as much mattress maintenance as we can to keep it in good shape. Stuff like rotating the mattress every 6 mo-1 yr can help prolong the life of whatever mattress you buy. Also keeping it on a box spring or slat bed frame to make sure it gets proper air flow so mold doesn't grow inside. Things of that nature