restore content from time machine backup one by one

After a clean OSX install I wanted to restore the content of the time machine backup one by one. This way I could leave out old junk content and applications that have accumulated over the time.
I had to do a clean install after I had to bring my mac to Mc Shark to repair my busted graphics card. The people at Mc Shark asked me for my administrator password but I would rather have them wipe my hard drive before I would hand them my password. (What do we have the time machine for?)
So they wiped my hard drive and I set up the mac from scratch - a clean install. I did not restore the user profile from the time machine backup during the OSX install or using Migration Assistant afterwards. I simply used Finder to copy each file or directory from my time machine backup to my new install. Even for things like emails or passwords that are not as easily accessible as - say - pdf documents this worked surprisingly well.

In Finder I navigated to the device where time machine has created the backup Computer->My Book->Backups.backupdb->Michaels Mac. There I could find all the backups that time machine has created sorted by date. The latest, most recent, backup was even named Latest to make it stand out.

I have a late 2011, 17'' MacBook Pro with Mac OSX 10.9 installed (after updating from 10.7 to 10.8 and then to 10.9). Also I noticed that the file structure changed slightly after the clean install.

So here's how I restored the content one by one:
Navigate to
Latest->Macintosh HD->Users->michael
and hit Cmd+Shift+G and type Library to gain access to this hidden folder. Now I am in
Latest->Macintosh HD->Users->michael->Library
(Actually, with a short terminal command it's possible to display all hidden files.)

All passwords saved to the keychain
Copy
Latest->Macintosh HD->Users->michael->Library->Keychains
to the corresponding location in your new installation. For this I opened a second Finder window and navigated to the hidden Library folder of my new user profile. Then I could copy via drag and drop. Also, since the installation was still clean, I have faithfully overwritten the existing folders.

All emails and all email settings
Copy
Latest->Macintosh HD->Users->michael->Library->Mail
and copy
Latest->Macintosh HD->Users->michael->Library->Mail Downloads

The Mail app did take some time to do some processing after its first start.

iTunes library
Copy
Latest->Macintosh HD->Users->michael->Music->iTunes

iPhoto library
Copy
Latest->Macintosh HD->Users->michael->Pictures

Afterwards I had to specify the location of the iPhoto library I wanted to use (the folder I copied from my backup).

.emacs, .vimrc, .bash_profile
It's also possible to make Finder display hidden files

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles -bool true
killall Finder