Better SEF URLS

-- HikaShop version -- : 2.2.2
-- Joomla version -- : 3.2

I have a few questions about getting better SEF urls. I've looked around and I know questions like these have been been asked before but the only references I can find are quite old now and may be out of date.

For the record, I'm setting up a shop to sell downloadable digital books.

Firstly...
is there any way to improve the default URL of Hikashop? At the moment I have product URLs like these:

In an ideal world I'd like:Which dispenses with the generic "digital books" part and the word "product".

Secondly...
If achieving the above is not possible without hacking the core code or installing additional components I can live with the URLs as they are... apart from the category_pathway-14.html part on the end. I've tried removing it in the browser and the URL works just fine without it so clearly it isn't necessary. How do I turn it off?

Finally...
I don't mind adding URLs manually if that's possible - it's not as if we're going to have millions of products so it won't take long. I have tried modifying the "URL" and "Canonical URL" fields in the product configuration but this doesn't seem to behave as I'd expect... in fact it doesn't appear to do anything at all. Am I misunderstanding what these fields do, or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for your continued help

EDIT - sorry - just realised I probably posted this in the wrong forum!