Yah, it was more the concept which had merrit as opposed to the application itself. If it were me, I would definitely work the issue more completely - but a lot of that goes back to being an engineer who spends most of the day editing technical manuals as opposed to designing things (makes for good mental aerobics).

I know when I was living in Japan in the 90s the apartment's had a community pond in the courtyard area and they used a prefilter that looked a lot like the sand filters used in pools here. I never looked on the inside to see how it was plumbed though - so I am not too sure what would need to be done to put one together here (I also haven't seen one commercially available in the US).

Because of the backyard I have to work with though, it is something that I have been trying to figure out a better solution for as well. The skimmer socks have helped a good bit, but I have to clean them every morning - and ideally I would like to minimize the maintenance without having to hire a pool company. Right now, what I am considering is two or three of the Pentek PBH filter housings in order to minimize pressure drops and maintain the flow rate with the largest filter bag they offer. That should catch the larger items that make it through the skimmer screen and still provide long enough between maintenance to make having a pool fun as opposed to work.

I haven't crunched the numbers yet though - however it looks like it should work at a glance.