Do you have to use bitminter's client to join bintminter's pool?
Bitminter apparently has a 1% fee on income earned since 04.2013 - is this standard? Are there good pools without a fee?
No, you can use your choice of mining software and point it at bitminter's server. refer to the first post of the bitminter thread in the pool section:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=27062.0Yes there are good pools without a fee. look at the first post in the mining pools list thread:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=104664.0