The Quest for the Perfect Shower

So I am pretty much on a constant quest to put together the perfect shower, keeping in mind that I have a somewhat limited budget and that I'm dealing with a 60 year old claw foot iron bathtub that I'm pretty much completely unwilling to give up. (Mostly because that would involve moving it, and the thing weighs a fracking ton.) I figured that this years New Years resolution to clean and organize the bathroom and kitchen cabinets certainly included cleaning up and upgrading the shower (a shower is sort of like a cabinet, right? Even one in a claw foot tub?), so I started doing some research and some ordering.
Now I live in an apartment with 80 some year old plumbing (except for the stuff I've replaced myself) and city water with approximately the same chlorine content as a kiddy swimming pool. All this in mind, I decided it might be time to try one of those in-line shower water filters. Specifically the Crystal Quest Chrome Luxury Shower Filter. Mostly because it was chrome and the filter only had to be changed once a year.
Next up was a brand new showerhead. This one was hard for me... I love rain showers, but the shower add on for my claw foot tub insures that water pressure to the showerhead pretty much blows. Thus, anything with a flow restricter that I can't remove or adapt just isn't going to make it. I ended up ordering the  Danze D451279RB Six-Inch Sunflower Brass Showerhead, Oil Rubbed Bronze, except in chrome 'cause it was cheaper. One of the Amazon reviewers specifically mentioned that he had been able to find and remove the flow restricer, which was pretty much the deciding factor for me.  Keeping in mind that the shower filter looked pretty hefty (and I'm pretty dang tall), I also ordered  the Danze D481150 9-Inch Adjustable Shower Arm with High Flow, Chrome.

Installation
Now I already have one of those cool shower diverters (mine is something like this one: Alsons Corporation Brass Shower Flow Diverter BC9600 ) that allows a hand shower add on, and I've decided (for the moment at least) to stick with the hand shower that I already have.
Now putting this together ended up being a bit more of a challenge than I had anticipated. The shower filter is long... a good six inches. Combine that with the three inches or so my diverter was already lowering the shower, and the fact that I had decided to go with a rain type shower head, and it just wasn't tall enough for my 6'3", even with the extension arm. I probably could have gone with something like the Solid Brass, Polished Chrome, Low Profile Shower Filter - Aplpbsf-Pc to pick up a couple of inches, but that still would have left the shower diverter in a pretty awkward location. Luckily, because of the whole claw foot tub situation, I have easy access to the shower riser (the pipe that runs from the bath faucet to the showerhead), and decided to mount both the filter and diverter in line with that about halfway up.

Results
The shower filter has blown me away. I've already noticed a very real difference in my skin and hair, not to mention the smell and taste of the water. For people with crappy water (like me) this is just a must have. The showerhead is also pretty awesome, although I did end up having to remove two different flow restricters to get it up to sufficient pressure. With the 9 inch extension arm, it really is like heavy (warm) rainstorm. If I were going to do it over again, I think that I might just have put out the extra few bucks and gone with the Danze D451159 Eight-Inch Sunflower Showerhead with Nine-Inch Extension Arm, Chrome. Although, considering my water pressure situation, maybe not.

Next
So now that I've replaced every other part of the shower, I'm starting to think that the hand shower is the next to be replaced. If you have any advice for great hand showers, let me know.