Well, after spending my entire weekend doing online research and rigging a ground wire to my plumbing, I think I may have come across a real solution to my problem. This company called "Brickwall" manufactures surge protection that does not divert power to the ground wire... unlike what appears to be 99.99% of other manufacturers.
http://brickwall.com/grndcur.htm#formAccording to their website, "Almost all manufacturers of shunt mode surge protectors (those utilizing MOVs) design their products to divert surge current equally between the ground and neutral wires. A surge protector should not divert surge current to the ground wire....
...Brick Wall surge protector products are based on the current (hence voltage) limiting of a massive inductor. Residual energy that leaks through is captured by a series of electrolytic capacitors. There it is slowly leaked back to the neutral at a harmless level. Outside of trivial amounts of parasitic capacitance our Series Mode surge protectors do not put any surge current on the ground of your systems."
I get the gist of what they are saying, but since I'm not an EE I think I will call the and check out the details. Hopefully, this will solve my problem and also offer a good unit to use in the future even if I move into a place that has decent wiring.