No. Handling fee is depended on Order sub-total. If you set for ex. $20 "order total" that's mean fee will apply for all orders that have sub-total less than $20.
Field Type is not useless.
You can look into table order_totals and you'll find it there. Also you can to see it in order details. We added this sign ( type ) for recognizing types of totals for future flexible statistics ...or something more
I mean that I have chosen any type of the handling fee. It will also apply the handling fee to the order. In my opinion, type "Fee" should be applied to shipping or payment handling fee, type "sub-total" should be applied to sub-total, type "total" should be applied to order final total amount, type "discount" should be applied to sub-total and a discount should be given but it doesn't work. all the orther types are the same result.
You should better add a description to explain the purpose of each "type" in the extension.
Thank you.