goodroi - 1:24 pm on Nov 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

it sounds like you understand the sitemap situation well enough. you can use a sitemap to provide a suggestion to the search engines. the search engines do pay attention to the data you include in the sitemap but are not controlled by that information.

traditionally if you want a link to get a higher percentage of value associated to it you would:
-place higher in the code
-surround with relevant text
-avoid appearing as a ros link

if you want a small handful of pages to get love and attention simply develop more backlinks from external websites to these pages and increase the level of internal backlinks pointing to them. generally a stand alone link embedded in content will be seen as more powerful than a ros link. hope that helps.