Need Advice Please - Rock Salt Finish Concrete

[Isaac-1]

On the topic of concrete sealers, not all are created equal, in fact they are not even in the same ballpark.

 

[TortugaCat]

Stamp or Rock salt is both concrete the only difference is the finish which in reality is about 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep from the surface. So environmental factors are going to be same with both.
Sounds like your pool builder was just pushing you towards a more expensive finish (for His benefit).

I don't disagree. However, in our case the quote from the PB was only slightly more than that quote from the concrete guy, and our PB used rebar and a higher PSI concrete. It was worth a little extra to get a higher quality product, and there is also some benefit to having the PB responsible for everything, so they can't later blame someone else if something goes wrong.