With all due respect, you're wrong about that. PR in categories has everything to do with amount of backlinks and nothing else. Here are some sub-categories in our directories that have PR 2 and I can assure you the reason they have PR is not because of structure but because of their niche. (all categories in directory are structured the same) http://www.amray.com/searches/Business_,038_Commerce/Accounting_,038_Bookkeeping/ http://www.amray.com/searches/Business_,038_Commerce/Better_Business_Bureau/ http://www.amray.com/searches/Computers_,038_Internet/Crackz_,038_Hackz/ http://www.amray.com/searches/Health_,038_Fitness/Pharmacies_,038_Drug_Stores/ You see what I mean? fastreplies
Yahoo! is showing no off-site backlinks for at least one of those pages which would appear to contradict what you are saying. Google works very hard to ensure no one fully knows how PR, SEO and the SERPs work. In this case, I know what I've seen on my own sites just as you know what you've seen on your's. Perhaps since my directories are niche ones, I'm seeing different things than you are with Amray. For whatever reason, we've come to different conclusions. We could keep throwing links at each other to support our conclusions or simply agree to disagree.
G. toolbar is showing PR2 in IE but if you're using FF, then install "SEO Status PageRank/Alexa Toolbar 1.5.7" Add-on in Navigation Bar and you will see the same fastreplies
you need to understand that directories are dynamic sites and since it is a listing tendencies are your site changes it level or position.