Pricing Questions

Hello Group,
I'm in the process of setting up an efficient pricing structure in MAPICS. We 
currently have 1 price book on our system and this price book doesn't contain 
any pages i.e. simply uses the base price information. I'm trying to setup 
another price book and add records to page 1. I created a new price book, added 
an item to page 1 and put in a new item price (say $4000). While creating a COM 
order for that item, I changed the price book ID and the price code to the new 
values, but the system doesn't use the new page 1 item price ($4000) and it 
uses the price (say $3500) available in the item base price file for that item. 
I also checked the effectivity date and it looks ok.
 
However, I was able to accomplish the above by creating a contract for the 
customer/item and using the contract number on the COM order and the correct 
selling price ($4000) appeared on the invoice. So here are my questions:
 
(1) Why does the price book approach not work? Am I missing something? 
(2) How do I get the system to get the contract  pricing for an item even 
WITHOUT entering the contract number on the COM order?
(3) Could someone point out the general differences between 'Page 1-Price Book' 
approach and 'Contract' approach? 
 
Thanks,
Nandu