OMG! Somebody call Ripley's! Scycamore and I agree on something!
I'm going to be cremated as well, but only because I don't like the idea of rotting...yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I'm going to be dead, and won't know it, but..just...ew.
My ick factor concerning the article was the whole bed thing. I went to funerals as a young child, and it was no big deal. But that's because it was a closure thing, I think. A bed isn't closure. A coffin is. A bed/coffin is like you're sitting around waiting for the person to die...and I know far too many parents who've told their kids, in an effor to explain death, that the person--or the pet--is "sleeping." These same people subsequently had problems getting their children to go to bed because the kids thought that if they went to sleep that they wouldn't wake up either.
A bed is associated with sleeping and waking. A coffin isn't. If you're having an all-adult funeral, I don't suppose there's a problem. Adults and older children, I would assume, already understand the concept of death. But I've been to funerals attended by young children who don't yet understand the concept, and I think a bed would just confuse and/or scare them. They may indeed think that the person is just sleeping, and when that person doesn't wake up, and is put in the ground, that could be a real freak-out.
Sidhe