Thank you so much, echoflooring. You were absolutely right! We went back to the carpet store to get comfortable on all this before finalizing the order, and I figured I'd circle back for the benefit of anyone in the future who looks at this question. We went back and compared the carpet we chose to the "true friezes" and "true saxonies" they had. This Essential Living is something Karastan calls a "textured saxony." Fiber is much, much thicker, and considerable looser than a real saxony. Unlike the saxony, you can't make lasting footprints (or draw smiley faces as my son did), in the Essential Living carpet. About the same texture as the friezes, just a teeny bit longer and a little bit looser, and a bit softer. It's not as long as I remember it, and carpet vendor says they've had lots of experience putting it on stairs with no wear or safety issues. With his guidance we did scale the padding on the stairs back to a dense, thinner, pretty unyielding felt that should reduce concerns about too much padding/curve on stair treads. Thanks so much for all your help!

Hmmmmm. To my knowledge, Mohawk hasn't published any recommendations for central vacuum powerheads, so I can't say for sure if yours would work okay with the SS Silk products. But-- like I was saying, the vacuum difficulties really are limited to the premium soft carpets. I have not heard of any problems vacuuming traditional Smartstrand products ie Sorona They may not be classified as "premium soft", but believe me taditional SmartStrand carpet is still crazy soft. Prior to Mohawk introducing the SS Silk, Smartstrand was by far the softest carpet on the market imo. If you're unsure about Silk, then my suggestion would be regular Smartstrand. If you are the type that keeps carpet for 25 years, I think you'll like it a lot. Its a lot easier to maintain than nylon because of it's built-in stain protection that never wears or washes off. Kudos on doing your homework- it will pay off! Hope this helps

They do not show many entry level products online...It's an odd business..believe me...more angles than you could ever imagine. Call your dealer and tell them to call their rep. The only one they will not be able to cross over or talk about is a Mohawk Portico label and this is not one of them. Good Luck.

We too bought Mohawk Silk (Cozy Comfort or something like that) and initially had trouble with our existing vacs (central system and a Shark). We also contacted Mohawk and purchased a Hoover Windtunnel T Series Model UH70205 which was one of the models they recommended. It works like a champ. We bought online for about $125, but I have seen it since then (or very similar versions) in big box stores. Given the amount we paid to put in this carpet, I was getting nervous when I initially read some of the reviews about vacuum problems, but I have also seen some similar to mine where unhappy buyers started out with vac problems (especially Dysons), only to be overjoyed with the product when they got the right vac for the job. One thing it shows is that you don't have to spend a mint to get a great vac for this type of carpet. This Hoover was less than my Shark! But at end of the day, we LOVE our carpet now -- best ever and would recommend it to anyone! One thing -- what did Floortech mean when he said it "caught fire" because of its softness? I assume that is a figurative statement?