Sure you can. Just ask your BCash is Bitcoin friends

= higher fees
Actually, it is to be expected that an empty block is mined if it comes within a minute of the last block. The pools cannot grind to a halt when their node is verifying the transactions of the last block. The verification of all the transactions in the previous block needs to be completed before a pool can start including transactions.(They need to basically remove the included transactions from their mempool.)
No, it's a choice they make and some are worse than others. Bitfury mining pool chooses not to mine empty blocks.