Confusion about capacitor current
less current going through a capacitor and more getting stored?


Ah, that's a misconception taught in grade-school.  

Actually, it all goes through!

Capacitors are like any 2-lead component: for each electron forced into one end, an electron pops out the other end, and none are stored inside.  A fully-charged capacitor contains just as many electrons as a totally-discharged capacitor.  So, if we place ammeters in the two capacitor leads, both ammeters read exactly the same value during charge or discharge.  Capacitors don't store current (or more specifically, they don't store charge.)

Capacitors do store energy ...but then so do inductors.   In other words, inductors store b-fields within their ferrous cores, and capacitors store e-fields in their dielectric layers.   But inductors store just as many coulombs as capacitors do: meaning, none at all.

How does the misconception arise?  One source is our typical schematic: we usually ground one side of a lowpass capacitor, then pretend that the grounded plate doesn't exist.  We can charge the remaining plate positive or negative, as if it were a metal ball hanging in space.  But in fact it's a pair of closely-spaced plates, and putting a negative charge on one plate will automatically produce an opposite charge on the second plate, even if the second plate is grounded.

The mechanical analog for capacitor is a spring, or a rubber band.  When we stretch a rubber band, how much rubber have we stored?  Zero; we've only stored energy, not rubber.  The hydraulic analog of a capacitor is a pair of water tanks with a rubber separator.  Hydraulic capacitors don't build up any water.  Real capacitors only store charge-imbalance.  To "charge" a capacitor, we move electrons away from one plate and place them on the other plate (which then exposes the positive protons of copper atoms in the first plate.)  No electrons are ever injected or removed from the capacitor as a whole.  (If they were, then the whole capacitor would immediately charge up to many billions of volts!)  Capacitors only work because we're moving charges around inside.  But then, that's how inductors work too: a "charged" inductor contains "spinning charge," while "charged" capacitors contain "stretched" or imbalanced charge.

Charged capacitors: they aren't charged with charge.