author and domain/categoryname permalink (bugs)

I have setup permalinks:
/item/%postname% for posts
/category/%categoryname% for categories

The problem is, that the author link returned by the_author_posts_link is then /item/author/author-nick what is quite stupid, i want it to be
/author/author-nick without the /item

And it is also very stupid, that the_author_posts_link return only full name as an anchor title. I want to have freedom – e.g. link on his nickname, his description or on anything else (e.g. “my articles”).

And next relevant – i would like to have category without /category/ so only mydomain.com/category-name
the problem is, that when i delete /category from permalinks setum, the system takes it as default (so with /category)

I think all things are probably “bugs” – all other systems have special permalinks for authors etc. Of course i can make hand-made changes to .htaccess and do not use the build in tool, but it is very unhandy