I don't know the answer to your question about the pot filler, but wanted to say that it is beautiful.

Below is a link to 5 kitchens in the Finished Kitchens Blog that have stainless counters. Here is a photo of ours. We've only been in the house since the end of Feb., and obviously the kitchen isn't quite finished, but we do like the stainless counters. They certainly scratch, but we expected that...They're supposed to look better the more they are scratched and it becomes more of an all-over look. It's great to be able to set hot things on them and not worry about it. Here is a link that might be useful: kitchens w/stainless counters from the FKB

Do you mean like this? Mine has a Shelf as well.

Chemetal has some very cool looking products. My MIL loves her Corian BS for ease of cleaning, but she has an island cooktop. I would be nervous using Corian in a high heat area. You mentioned large format tile, so I am going to throw out another idea -- really large format tile. I don't want to clean grout in the shower, so we are using large sheets of Kerlite Plus on the 2 side walls. Each of the walls will be done in a single piece of material, so no grout lines! Kerlite is a porcelain stoneware tile that is 3mm thick (3.5 mm for the plus version which has a fiberglass backing and is recommended if you need to do cutouts, like for faucets). We paid $200 per 100x300 cm (39-3/8"x118-7/64") slab (about $6.15 sq ft) for the Kerlite Plus in Via Tornabuoni from the Elegance series (one of the more expensive color series they offer). It is a really pretty medium gray that looks like limestone. They have several different different series that have patterns that look like different types of natural stone, wood, concrete or solids. Our color was a special order from Italy that took several weeks, but the local distributor also had some colors in stock. The Buxy and Colors lines have some lovely cream, tan and gray shades that would probably look good in your kitchen, depending on the countertops, and my local distributor had several colors from those lines in stock and they were less expensive than the Elegance line. You could probably do the back of your enclosure with a single seam, and the sides and top with no seams. Kerlite can also be used for countertops with a mitered edge over a plywood base. It is heat resistant. Kerlite comes in the following sizes: • whole slab, 100x300 cm (approx. 39-3/8"x118-7/64"); • slab, 40x100 cm (15-3/4"x39-3/8"); • slab, 100x100 cm (39-3/8"x39-3/8"); • slab, 50x50 cm (19-11/6"x19-11/16"); • border tile, 4.9x100 cm (1-59/64"x39-3/8"). Our shower should be tiled in about 2 weeks, and I am really excited to see how it turns out. Here is a link that might be useful: Kerlite colors