Thanks for getting back to me! We do have a 5 way drop kit too (not 6 way). I will have to look into the ones you recommend when we return wed from a mini vacation.
We do use both when testing the pool though as I didn't know which one was better.

The drop kit has the chlorine off the chart (above 5)
PH is between 7.2-7.6.
Alkalinity takes 9 drops with our kit which is off the chart provided by the kit. The test strip reads alkalinity between 80-120
Hardness and stabilization we cannot test with this drop kit but the strips read hardness of 200 and CYA of 30-50.

Tests at both stores confirm the numbers above. We get a print out from a test machine (not that that means much, but between 2 stores and 2 test kits we match numbers which was why I was figuring they were real).

As for the stuff we've used in the pool. The floc and clarifier were used many weeks ago at the beginning of this mess and I no longer have the containers. The Shock we originally used - same thing. Container thrown away, but it was a gallon liquid shock purchased from the pool shop. We added 4 gallons. This did jack the free and total chlorine but didn't help clear it. We let the pool sit circulating for a while to see if it would eventually clear up. When it didn't we added 4 more gallons of the same shock. This time the free and total chlorine went up overnight but free chlorine was gone by the morning. We made the mistake of going to the pool store (they all think you are a bottomless pit of money) and they told us to add saf-t-shock. and oxidizing agent (chlorine free shock) to get the other shock working. Didn't work. They also told us to add stabilizer as ours was reading a bit low at the time (25). We then used a granular Ultra shock which says it contains clarifier, and a water softener (which has helped our hardness numbers). It says it has 56% Calcium Hypochlorite in it. We have added 3 lbs which raised both chlorine levels and held them pretty good for a few days. As the numbers started to fall again, it was at that point that we decided to change the sand in the filter thinking that with all the stuff we had pushed through it in the beginning we may have done some damage to it - too much back washing, channeling, etc.

Since the new sand we added more shock (the Ultra) to try to keep it up high and the filter has continued to run.

As for the DE through the filter. We actually have some and tried it with the old sand. It didn't do anything to help clear, but I also did not note if it came right back out the return. I wasn't looking for it. We can definitely try that again though and check it out! FYI - the pool has been vacuumed AGAIN and my husband found more debris on the bottom so I"m sure that wasn't helping. As for filling the pool, we use city water.