[hcoles]

Regarding the deck material.

It sounds like fully capped composite decking addresses most of the issues reported. The issue I see as most common is that the surface gets very hot in the sun. Some brands are likely to be better than others - more investigation needed.

The other alternative is IPE which is a hardwood. I didn't uncover many negatives. Some negatives mentioned are: special cutting tools needed, staining every two years if you don't want the color to fade and very little color selection (usually is a dark brown color).