The grounding or rerouting of the filtered signals is interesting. I have a Bencher YA-1 that does not have a means of grounding as it is pop riveted together. The ICE filter, on the other hand, has two grounding posts. They advise grounding the filter close to the point of ground; whereas, others recommend connecting their filters directly to the transmitter or amp.
The Bencher should be grounded by virtue of the shield of the coax which is grounded via the radio and antenna ground. Filters directly behind a transmitter/amp are grounded through the radio/amp/antenna. It appears to me that in all of these options for placement ground is achieved. How it is achieved is a matter of installation preference or requirement. I guess the higher the power, the more stringent the grounding requirement, and since the ICE is a high-power handling filter, they recommend placing it as close to the grounding source as possible.
On a separate note, the Bencher was given to me because it was 'soaking up output'. I adjusted the screws on the bottom to match the transmitter's output without the filter and it appears to be working fine. My colleague has a spectrum analyzer and I can't wait to see how this 'tune up' actually works. I also noted that I can get more watts out of it in turning the adjusting screws a bit passed the equalization point, but I assume it is changing the impedance. I matched it as closely as I could using the LP-100a. The SA will tell the real story.
As an update, I had a few locals 'listen' to both filters and they unanimously selected the ICE. Appears my so-called tune up may be narrowing 11 meters. I haven't tried it on the lower bands yet but I found it interesting. It will go on the SA tomorrow. I'll post back up.
Interesting subject indeed!