v0.8.6-beta
Thats a pretty old version. You should update to the latest version. This might be partly the reason you were charged such a high fee.
This blockchain had been a bear to keep current. The Vaio laptop was low on memory and kept crashing until I found that I hadn't been mounting my swap file. Since mounting my swap file there have been no more crashes.
Yeah Bitcoin Core is pretty resource heavy and will only continue to get worse as the Blockchain grows. Although newer versions run a bit smoother compared to the version you are using.
You should consider using an SPV wallet instead such as Electrum, it only needs a couple MB space to run and uses almost no CPU/RAM, though you won't be contributing to the network.
So, I'm running two Bitcoin-QT blockchains and have never seen any transaction fee credited for running these. How do I get credit for maintaining these?
Only miners get those fees, and the fees only make up a tiny portion of their income. People just running nodes do not get any incentive, although they really should.