It does take a while for it to come through. what cryptocurrency did you use. some take longer than others. i recommend vircurex it generally works better.

Namecoins can still be mined though and there are a few places on the web that allows you to trade them for bitcoins. Though my guess is the amount of bitcoins you will get will be very small. But still 0.01 bitcoin is better than none.

Yeah, but be careful which miner you use as some use all available cards.
so use more advanced miners like CGminer, GUIminer of UfasoftCPU.