yes, I would get the lower platform.

Yes! This chart should help you tweak it to the right sizes for lamps, which I'd prefer to match. You might consider wall mounted lamps for your bed.

Another thing you could do is get bigger night stands that are proportional to your bed.

Our choice when getting a higher bed was to use sofa tables (which are higher)

Thanks for all your comments. We'd prefer to keep our current nightstands. I'd like to get matching lamps, paint, decorate etc. but I wanted to first see what to do about our wimpy looking nightstands b/c the date to exchange the platform was coming up. I will definitely post another thread when I get to the point of decorating. I like the idea of wall mounted lamps....hhhmmm...