I know but it's hard to make an informed decision when I have to buy the equipment, and have it shipped to me. There is no rental stores where I live, where you can test this stuff out. So I pretty much have to make uninformed decisions, unless a store comes here that has a lot of movie making equipment.
I can order more stuff, but I don't want it to be the wrong stuff again, only to either send it back or resell it.
1) I don't typically check with local rental companies before I buy, and there are no local shops that carry what I need. I seem to do fine.
2) Ignoring all the advice that suggests you should be prepared for multiple environments and then purchasing only the one solution is not making an informed decision.
3) You didn't buy the wrong thing. You bought one solution expecting it to do everything and, again, ignoring advice that it doesn't apply to everything. If you take that mic outside on a breezy day, you'll need the blimp. Take it out in a windstorm and you'll need the dead cat, too.
Even if the ceilings were high enough, there is about a foot of extra room in the Rode blimp between the mic and the front of the blimp. So the mic now has to be an extra foot away from the actors
What the hell kind of mic are you putting in that RØDE blimp that there's an ENTIRE FOOT between the mic and the front of the blimp?! I have the RØDE blimp, and an NTG-3, and at most it adds 4" to the front, and maybe - MAYBE - 2" on the back factoring in the XLR connector that sticks off the back of the mic anyway. And yes, I just measured it to be sure.
Unless you are using a much smaller mic, which would beg the question of what made you buy a huge blimp for a small mic?
When I shift the boom pole from person to person it creates wind...
I have to shift fast, since you want it to be aimed at the next actors mouth before they speak. So I need some windprotection and the foam windscreens that came with my mics are just not doing the job.
The foam windscreen that came with my NTG-3 is plenty to guard against air moved by boom swings. I don't know why yours isn't. But just get a furry cover for the foam screen, which I've already suggested, and you should be fine.