Internal Links & Internal URL Paths

2 questions related to internal pages. I own a regional directory that is asp based. Therefore, category pages do not have the category name in the URL, but rather the category ID...like so:

/categories.asp?CategoryId=149

Does anybody know if I would be better off resolving this path to a directory name like /car-dealers ?

Question #2.

While my homepage maintains a strong PR, my internal pages have all lost their PR. I also have a complete directory index on all of the category pages...wondering if that's hurting me too?

Bonus Question

Would a domain mask (different domain name) across my entire site affect the actual path that Google sees...and thus affect optimization (even though we're all trying to figure out what optimization is these days?

Ajordan sorry noone has yet to reply to your post

#1 Do a search for site:domain.com "domain.com" if your URL strings all show up in google with appropriate description etc then no problem. Google can parse a few variables as long as the strings to go past say 2 params.
If you were going to apply a filter do it now while they are still low PR, that way tou have more control over the filename ie get your KW in there
#2 would have to see the site

Bonus question - not exactly sure what you mean here can you clarify?.
Cheers

wht i know is google don't understand urls containing anything after "?"

Hi Ricky (and the rest),

Posts like this don't help much since they are basically not true.... and I can show you several hundred million results for pages with a ? in them. I have noticed recently that pr doesn't seem to be showing for those pages, but they (can) rank beautifully in the serps....

ajordan, i think the option with the name would be better... just because it is adding a keyword to your url.