Finished syncing it's just cruising now
Good work man
to try answer a couple of questions from posts above
There has recently been discussion among the dev group regarding the number of "light" wallets in the future due to ease of use and a possible diminishing number of "full nodes"
A "light client" does not need the blockchain and thus cannot pass it to other peers
A "full node" downloads the full blockchain and helps to relay the information through the network telling other full nodes and light clients about new blocks and transactions ( we all wait to see our txns confirmed - these nodes spread the news)
The concern comes in when the number of Full nodes diminishes to the point where some single entity "could" control a majority of full nodes and having that control "could" introduce incorrect data into the network possibly even a whole new blockchain. Bad bad stuff.
So full nodes relay information on the network and do help and support the Bitcoin network. Also the resources required to run a full node are negligible compared to mining, though as always I would encourage people to check with their employers before installing any 3rd party software or opening ports in corporate firewalls
The people that get "transaction fees" are the miners that include transactions in blocks, part of "including" is verifying transactions, this can be either solo or pooled miners.
hope that is a help
Graet