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Greetings Mark:
I don't have any experience with those mem utils you mention, however, you need to beware of mem utils that do things that Windows already does. For example, RAM booster sounds like a program that spools RAM to disk (which the Windows swap file already does), so there's likely to be a loss in performance since you're adding new code to do exactly what the OS does already. Other RAM utils that add RAM disks to move your swap file to is another redundant waste of resources because Windows swaps to disk once it runs short of physical RAM space. By taking away that RAM to run a RAM disk, you're causing the system to swap earlier than it needs to while adding the additional code to run the RAM disk in the first place. So the bottom line, is read carefully before installing any of those things.
To answer your question about RAM and FS, FS is really more of a CPU hog than a RAM hog. The only time that RAM seems to play any difference in frame rates is when accessing scenery files. If your scenery file exceeds your free RAM, you won't be able to fit as much into memory, causing a disk read (and related pause) when you need a new chunk of scenery. (Note that your first scenery access will remain the same because you're reading directly from disk.)
Scenery cache settings have to do with CD-ROM access, so if you've got all your scenery loaded on HD, you might try turning that down. There's little to be gained here, and again, it won't affect frame rates as we discussed above.
Ah, mesh scenery. That's what's killing your frame rate. That and many aftermarket panels will drop your frame rates to next to nothing. The panel problems can be checked by turning the panel off and noting the change in frame rates. (Press the W key.) Most panels (acutally guages) will cause a frame rate drop, but some are VERY demanding, so you might want to check that.
I'm not really sure what causes the mesh scenery to bog systems down so much (I suspect that they add twice as much to render--the stuff below is rendered although you can't see it), but Joe's the expert on mesh scenery here and perhaps he can provide some tips for you.
In my experiece, 256 megs of RAM is optimum for FS2K. I've run more than that, but started running into the dreaded "stutter."
Thanks for the link to the pix. I wonder if those lions were waiting for their pilot to fly them somewhere, or if they just ate the pilot!
Best!
Ben