I for one like pooling because it's set up very quickly without the wallet.
http://dmdpool.digsys.bg has
zero pool fees, transaction fee is minimum required by the network, so that might be an option.
@whoever created that pool: nice one! Because I'm curious: what's your reason for setting up a pool for free?
Since I am the one who set up this pool, I will answer your question:
1. Why set up the DMD pool? I was curious
Also, at the time DMD was just re-started and needed some help. There is always much to learn from doing things like this.
2. The pool initially suffered from many bugs in the stratum server and the front-end. In essence, these bugs made many leave. I can understand it and this is the reality of services. But the pool does function and anyone is free to use it.
3. The pool uses proportional payments, because this is "obviously" the easiest to understand by users and it is also fair, considering that people today look at their hashing power as an investment.
4. The pool usage is free and the transaction fees are at minimum, because I believe this is the essence of crypto currencies. You don't pay other people in order to participate in the network, why should you pay in order to mine together with others? The low transaction fees encourage people to have their earnings sent to them right away, so less is sitting at the pool wallet (and less risk there is for large double payments, software errors and other causing loss of funds).
5. The resources required to run these pools (I have built around a dozen already for other coins) are modest. Well, this is probably because I already have the infrastructure available, but -- you can run a very good pool on cheaper hardware than you need in order to create even a modest miner!
All of these things are in line with what I have been doing in the past 25 years to make Internet work for people. Today, I can say it was the right thing to do.
Nevertheless, I can understand the temptation to be part of the frenzy and benefit from other people's desire to get rich quick. Remember the Wild West? Remember Alaska? Neither approach is wrong.
By the way, people do donate to the pool. The donations are very modest, but if compared to the actually mined coins, they would equal 0.3% pool fee.