Maintenance headache? I don't do
anything to maintain it!
When I purchased my house the pool was covered in calcium scaling deposits. And the "river rock" tile had a nasty ring around it, about 1" tall. I had the finish replaced but kept the tile ('cause I
love it). For about $400 the plaster guys removed the scaling from the tile (blasting). It looks virtually new. Around the same time I had that done, I connected my autofill system to my home's water softener (I have a thread about that), and since that time I've been able to maintain the pool's proper CH (about 350ppm) without doing anything. Additionally, I follow TFPC strictly, and maintain my CSI within the proper range at all times (-0.3 to 0.0 for a pool with an SWG).
For reference, my water from the city is about CH350, give or take depending on time of year.
It's a little over a year since I had everything replaced/cleaned, and I can't find a single spec of calcium scaling anywhere, and definitely not on the tile. I don't expect to have to bead-blast ever.
To be completely forthcoming, the grout is not pristine, but by no means bad or ugly. There is some sort of weird color variation between the grout that lives underwater from that which doesn't. And the bead blasting did not restore the grout to "like new." I imagine you can't blast grout mercilessly without compromising it. But I can't see any of that without very close inspection (inches away), so it is a non-issue. The pool was not properly cared for for its first six years or so. If it had been, I expect the grout would still look like new. So you're at an advantage in that regard.
Here is the rather long saga (one of my many) about the softener and controlling my hard water:
Water softener connected to auto fill, and new plaster start up.
If you're willing to practice TFPC and do some equipment mod's, your pool can be very easy to care for, and you won't experience a lot of what other pool owners have to do...
