The house I bought has a 49FH carrier model humidifier, which I would like to replace some time in the near future. When this one was installed they tapped the water line closer to the main connection before the water softener, is there any reason why they would do this?

It looks like the hard water, and iron clogged the filter at the little pump on top of the carrier and then burned the pump up, the filter in the humidifier was also showing signs of never being changed, full of crud and sediment.

When I replace this, if it is better not to use softened water I am going to put an in line filter before the softner and place the line feed to the humidifier here to keep sediment to a minium, unless of course everyone suggets that you can connect it after the softener with no problems.

I would guess after the softner would be fine, but I don't know, any takes on this?

A water softener replaces iron and calcium salts with common sodium chloride. If you use softened water, you will still get mineral deposits, but may have better luck washing them off. You might look at one of the small deionizers or reverse osmosis units. I am thinking the ones meant to go at the kitchen sink might be big enough to supply the humidifier with mineral free water. You could go to a whole house system in place of the softener too.