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Janice,
The proper solution would be to have the site set up at the server level to automatically rewrite URLs so they have one consistent pattern (typically all lower case). And to make sure all links within the site pointing to other pages on the site use that preferred capitalization method. While having Canonical tags can help alleviate the problem, they're not a best practices "only" solution. So speak with the site administrator or programmer to get the rewrite functionality implemented.
I'll also offer this - have you set up a Bing Webmaster account for the site? Two things why this is important. First, Bing can show you problems their system encounters, and second, I've had countless sites get more pages ranked in Google than Bing simply because a sitemap.xml file was not submitted through the Bing Webmaster system. Bing has a more difficult time discovering content and pages than Google does.
Next, I'd look at site validation - is there any glaring problem with the site's markup? Bing puts more emphasis on markup than Google does. I've seen client sites get a bump by fixing markup.
Any time clients ask me "What is a 'safe' link velocity?" I say - picture this - if it's something that feels like it can be achieved by a human manually taking action, then it's safe.
So if a human can submit to 20 or 30 directories all in a week or two that's safe. Because that's what a full time marketer would do for any company. It's when you instantly get hundreds or thousands of links from potentially shady sites that sets of the biggest red flag.And there's other signals that also imply "unnatural", which get factored in as well.
Truthfully, I've seen a site get tens of thousands of links in a single month and not have a problem. Think about it - send out one piece of very good viral material, and BANG - thousands of links.
Sha,
I know of several small sites that had no drop due to the Panda update. Something else must be going on, but without seeing the sites, no way to offer any additional insight.
Having done comprehensive audits on a number of domains that were hammered by the Panda/Google update, I would say that the domain match factor is either not a factor yet at all (most likely) or had very little to do with the problem you're seeing. Without seeing the domain I can't offer specific insight, however I'm consistently seeing a number of factors.
If your site has any one of the above issues, that alone could be the primary cause.
Thanks for this info Keri. Shows how far Google is willing to go, yet also that it's another imperfect process...
EGOL hit it - but I'd just add NOT ALL PDFs are. All too often I see client sites loaded with PDF documents that are nothing more than scanned images of print pages.
It's not a keyword density issue. It's a topical relationship and user value issue. The more content you provide that builds on a core topic, the stronger that topic will ultimately become.
Think of it this way -if you're doing research on a topic would you rather find a single page on a core topic or would you rather find an entire section of pages on that topic? While not everyone would care, it's definitely going to be better for some people.
Another way to look at it is it says "we're the definitive resource for all things highly related to this core topic".
And success is not, as Aaron suggests - it's got to be proper SEO for each page involved, and ultimately depending on competition, requires sub-topic relevant inbound links to those other pages as well.
Eric,
Rand's post really carries weight due to how search engines evaluate content relationships, and topical focus. It's inevitable that your page, with enough unique content on it, will be found for variations of whatever core phrase you target, so you might as well integrate a couple or a few highly related relevant phrases. Not only does it make sense in regard to ease of optimization, but the fact that you're integrating a few additional highly refined phrases just reinforces the emphasis on the primary phrase, while not coming across as trying to stuff that single phrase.
Search engines are very good these days at looking for those signals - the relationships of two topics. Not just cross-page, but definitely on-page as well.
The best solution without having to rewrite the code is to have HTML links added throughout the site. It's vital to have HTML links to ensure all search engines can crawl the site properly if they're going to be assured the ability to discover content.
At least part of the answer lies in your competitive landscape. If you properly optimize just a couple variations as primary phrases, add in other variations as secondary phrases to include within the content, get inbound links spread across both the primary and secondary, you should show up for several if not all of the variations you've listed.
Where the competitive landscape factor comes in is this. If you choose options 1 & 2 as your primary, then 3, 4 and 5 as your secondary, and any competitor targets 3 & 4 as their primary and does full on optimization, they'll likely rank higher for those. But that's only if all other factors are equal.
The best way to deal with this and not end up in a vicious cycle, is to leverage PPC ads on the full spread while you focus SEO as I've suggested.
If the organic competition is weak, you won't have as much of a battle.
Oh - I forgot to mention that I know this because I've worked on U.S. based rental sites - one of the largest regional rental sites, and one of the top two national sites.
If I understand your situation, you're talking about providing links to some other site from every page on your site. Is that correct? If so, yes, that's potentially a serious SEO problem. Too many links from one site to another can be considered link-stuffing. It's very possible that it's seen as a paid link.
As an SEO best practice, there should never be more than one version of any page URL. Even with Canonical implementation, it's only a signal, not a directive, and not all search engines even pay attention to that. While it's perfectly acceptable to offer filtering options for people to discover content, filters should be blocked from indexing at all cost. Leaving it up to Google or any search engine to have to figure out which is the original content is not a best practice even though many sites do it, and even though Google says it's okay.
Trying to get one page found simply by inserting different keywords in a URL is also a crap-shoot since that's the only thing that changes about the page itself. Like buying a keyword exact match domain only to use it as a redirect to the real domain.
Not to mention Google's ability to decipher JS to one degree or another, and they're working on improving that all the time. I've seen content they found that was supposed to be hidden in JS.
Pro Q&A is now my browser home page so I'm around a lot 
Ralph,
You're correct in your thinking. Add in cultural reference differences, and it's a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. It's wise to keep them separate both for SEO and user experience.
Hi Mike
I'd definitely not pollute / dilute the focus of Y by keying in on X for that report. Sure, you can reference X in the report, or in linking to it, but that should be secondary only... Let this be an opportunity to build the strength of Y.
Exactly. It's why I created the http://seoaud.it shortener for my own needs.
Interesting concept Anthony. The notion that it's ultimately all duplicate content though reinforces my own perspective I think, simply because those inbound links are not overwhelmingly strong, I figure the site might as well get its own "fresh content" bonus out of the deal, since press releases are really about creating / building brand identity as much as anything, and less for "high quality inbound links".
Ultimately I think we both have valid points so it could go either way.