Maximizing content, avoiding duplicates

[Tonearm]

I have category and sub-category descriptions on my category and sub-category pages, and I've included them on my product pages as well. That means my product pages each have three blocks of text on them:

Category Description
Sub-Category Description
Product Description

The category description and sub-category description are duplicated across many different pages in this way. I set this up a few years ago in order to maximize the amount of content on each page for people and for SE robots.

Could this be hurting more than it's helping?

[g1smd]

That should probably be OK as long as they occupy a small part of the page.

[Tonearm]

Well, those three descriptions make up the only full-sentence text on the page. Everything else is navigational links and some informational stuff that sticks around regardless of the page. What do you think?

[idolw]

concentrate on unique meta descriptions for now.
if any problems, put the duplicate descriptions into one file and just get links to a pop-up.

this is what i'd do.

anyway, remember: if ain't broken don't try to repair.
or you will end up cleaning clean window