To answer some of the questions
Bonding is not the same as grounding. Grounding provides and alernate path to ground for electrical systems in case a short occurs. Bonding equalizes the electrical potential between various conductive elements. When you shuffle your feet across the carpet and touch somone, you get a static electricity shock because you and the person you touch are at different potentials. If you had bonded youself to that person (say be holding hands) before you began to shuffle across the carpet, then you would not get a shock when you touch them with your other hand. Same goes for pools - the water, metal, earth, motor, ladder, and any other metal objects are all connnected together by a bond wire, so you cannot get a "static" shock by standing in the pool and touching the ladder for example. That is a bit simplistic of a description, but the general concept is there. Bonding and grounding are both required by the National Electric Code. Most municipalities use the NEC as their building codes, so a licensed electrician should be following them.
There is no problem getting into a properly wired pool with the pump running. Public pools are required to be filtered 24/7. Private pools are not. You should run your filter/pump as much as it needs to be. How much that is depends on your pool. The old ruile of thumb used to be to run it enough to change over the water each day. That has changed in the last few years. Many people can get away with running it less. I run my filter 4 hours a day for my 17,000 gal above ground pool. I could acutally back that down even more because my solar cover keeps a lot of debris out of my pool. You will be able to figure out what is right for your pool with trial and error.
-dave
