Does an inner spring mattress need a box spring?

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This is a difficult subject to get any real information about, especially from the horse's mouth, and I think I understand why. Bedding industry resellers and manufacturers are in the business of making money, not comfortable sleep. They would be the last people to want their customers to suspect something that makes them a huge margin might actually be quite useless. Add to this my logic-based conjecture that, a box spring may actually hasten the destruction of your expensive mattress because it allows it to sag and bend much sooner than it would on a solid platform surface. That just means more sales. If it makes money, why mess with it? Is this really all about greed?
I sometimes wonder how many people have sleep disorders and related health problems, some of them quite serious and even potentially fatal, simply because they sleep on a surface that sags in the centre. Personally, I experienced pain and stiffness every morning for years. One day, in desperation, I convinced my wife to let me try one of those "memory foam" toppers on the mattress. Although my wife complained of being too hot, until I suggested she might remove the heavy comforter she was under, I actually experienced significant relief the first night. A few weeks later, when my wife, a person who does not readily embrace change, was not home, I slid a piece of 2 centimetre thick plywood between the box spring and the mattress, eliminating most of the sag.
Within a few days, my morning muscle pain and stiffness was less than ten percent of what it had been. It has not returned.
Why did I not just get a new mattress and box spring? Actually, I have been through several sets that have sagged and become uncomfortable within a year or two. Perhaps it is because my wife and I weigh about 400 pounds together. So why not pay more for better engineering?
Touche!
But tell me why I should trust an industry, that I believe is already lying to me about box springs, to give me better engineering if I pay them two or three times the amount of money.
Do I need to have an upper class income just to get a decent sleep at night?
Am I wrong in beleiving that all traditional mattresses, and especially box springs, contain the same basic engineering and that exterior fabric choice is the only real diffence?
Tell me how much more comfort I might be able to afford to buy, if the bed retailer did not insist that warranties would be void if I didn't purchase a matched box spring to go with my mattress.
Then tell me the world wouldn't be a better place if more people slept better.
I expect I will eventually show the plywood sheet to my wife and ask her to ditch the box spring. I believe the bedding industry has done something to her psyche over the years that makes it difficult for her to rationalize being without a box spring... no matter how much pain and expense we endure to have one... we must have one because we've always had one... and the neighbours have one.

Has anybody ever done a scientific study on this? I'd love to read the conclusions.

Thanks for letting me rant.