My experience with pipe filters was iffy . . . I finally abandoned them when I forgot I had a wooden filter in my Savinelli, it swelled up with goop and I had no draw. Couldn't get it out. Finally a friend inserted a thin screw into the filter and we managed to pull it out with a pair of needlenose pliers. No more wooden filters.
I have a Falcon International, too, and tried the paper filters. Left the rest in the box after using a few. . . . agree with you that "things get kinda gross in there." I've found that the best solution to hot smoke or tongue bite and other maladies, is improving my ability to slow smoke, still a work in progress. For me, filters did interfere with the taste, but that's just me.
Reminds me of some of the weird contraptions that my violin students put on their fiddles to "make them more comfortable." In the cases where they work, there a dozen where they don't. Where they do work, there is usually a physical criteria present, sloping shoulders and very long necks being the most common. And the best ones are the simplest.
Happy IPSD! 2019 CRF in a 309 Spigot.
B pipe 
