WordPress hierarchies and podpress 8.2

Hi,
I’ve created a new wp install with podpress 8.2 – now I’m thinking about how the blog should be set up, I have a plan how it should look like but am unsure how to do it:

Let’s say the blog is installed at mydomain.de/blog/
The mainpage should feature a static page until November, then blogging will start. A free podcast has taken place this month and I’d like to upload the results in wp as well, but it should be separate from the weblog. That’s why I created a separate category, “Podcast” just for podcast entries.

Is there a way how I can have the blog create urls like this for Podcast entries?
/blog/podcast/episode-title
I tried changing the permalinks, but there’s the /category/ slug inbetween, so currently it looks like this
/blog/kategorie/podcast/
or, when viewing an individual post
/blog/2007/09/28/episode-title/
The permalinks option seems not to be able to differ between blog posts and podcast posts.

Another problem is that test entries for the weblog are shown as links above podcast entries. I’m trying to get the theme just to show previous and next entries from the same category, but was unable to do that.

I’ve enabled “category casting” for the “Podcast” category, but the description was very vague. The description in the podpress wiki was also not too helpful, my question is: Do I have to enable it to have a seperate feed just for the podcast?

My last question is about the weblog structure. Let’s say I have ten courses with a handful of people each. Each course should have their own category (which I created), how do I distinct them from the podcast category? They’re all in the same level in the category tree. I tried
-Podcast
-Weblog
–course one
–course two
–course three
[…]

But that again meant that the “main page” would have to be a static page because I don’t want podcast entries and weblog entries to be mixed together. I’d rather have the mainpage featuring only the weblog entries, and the podcast entries would only be displayed within their category/subfolder. Is there a better way to do this?
best regards,

GS