Good luck with the NHL and NBA channels. They continually add them it seems. I block them out, at least the ones that exist when I go through the list, but notice new ones later. I think they all cost money though (except for the "info" or "preview" channel .... I think there's one of those).
The PPVs should be easy because in the "Locks" menu, there is a button for "Lock all PPV" or something similar.
The reason there are the same channels in multiple locations varies.... HD channels historically were in the 94xx range but it seemed that enough people couldn't "find" them there, so Dish re-mapped them next to the SD version. That's why there are (2) channel "140" for ESPN. Locals are in the 4000-5000 range but again, people couldn't find them, so Dish re-maps them to their familiar channel, i.e. channel 5 or 7 or 16.