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I thought I would update your answer... https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main?pli=1

I read sometime ago a good structure is to have every page on the site accesiblie in 3 clicks. Don't create orphan pages, always have the same link block/menu on every page and you should be ok. Site structure is only about 10% of the issue. You need relevant titles/content and links coming into your site to rank well.

It's certainly possible. I've some sites where the DA is nearly double that of anyone else in the category but they're barely on the first page. The thing to remember about the SEOMoz numbers is that they are a diagnostic, but not based on anything 'real' when it comes to what Google is going to do. This means that you shouldn't treat them as an end all be all indicator of what's possible with a web site or not. I've since deleted the campaign but I remember one case where the site I was working on had a DA of 65 and the number 1 result had a DA of 15.

For top level categories we are trying to make very unique content.  For similar subcategories there may be a little overlap in product description on the category page but we try to make sure they are atleast 70% unique. It's a subjective call, not a perfected science with that. Taking the best sellers first is definitely the way to go about doing it. I don't monitor page authority as much but our rankings have increased and stuck for rather competitive SERPs.  There are a ton of other variables that went into our increased rankings so to say that adding unique content to a page "caused" a ranking increase would have to be tested out.  I know it helped, just not sure to tell you how much. You look more authentic to Google and Bing if you have unique quality content.