Can my balance be transferred to a different address? It's only 0.01 BTC but times are hard...
If you can prove you own the original address, I can possibly transfer the balance. To date, proving this is extremely difficult. I suggest anyone with such a balance leave it under 0.16 BTC (which I am considering moving the minimum payout to) until
signmessage is standardized.
@Luke: Would it be possible to automatically move miners to a pool that is best for them? So you always connect your miner to the "main server" but it then actually calls the closest one (similar to Google's 8.8.8.8 DNS).
DNS is stateless UDP, so it can use IP anycast. Mining is stateful TCP, so the same concept does not apply. My affiliate has some kind of GeoDNS that can resolve a domain based on lookup origin, which may work. He is pretty busy right now though, so it might be a while. Expect "mining.eligius.st" to resolve to a geographically-ideal server when he gets the time for this.
Are transaction fees mined handed out as well?
No, as state in the first post, the pool retains all transaction fees. Technically speaking, it
will use them for payouts, but it simply does not include them in calculating balances.
Any special anti-cheating voodoo concerning shares (devaluation of earlier shares for example) or just simple: own shares/all shares = payout?
Simple own shares/all shares. I consider devaluation of earlier shares to in fact be the real "cheating". There is no evidence that someone should be paid any less simply because their work was earlier, or paid more because their work was later.