IMHO, credit card companies should be required to maintain separate tallies of principal-plus-baseline-interest and additional interest. Payments would be applied first toward the "additional interest" tally. From a customer standpoint there need not be a distinction, but in a bankruptcy proceeding a credit card company should IMHO not be able to use all its compounded interest to jack up its share of the recovered assets.
I agree, I think one motivation for them to jack up the interest and fees, is to get a higher percent of whatever gets paid out than the other creditors do.
But I think that in a bankruptcy the credit cards should have to restate the last three years and apply all payments as though only legal interest was charged, with the rest of the payment reducing principle. That way the credit card company could only claim in bankruptcy the principle plus legal interest, they would lose the excess profits from raking people over the coals with dirty tricks. (That might be what you were trying to say, but you said apply to the additional interest first. I say ignore the additional interest and fees.