New Password Page and Registration Page Questions

The Password Page Tutorials shows the User ID for the key column; however, it shows the data type as text. Wouldn't this be numeric, or should I change it to text? I thought the UserID was always an integer as long as the database specifies...

Also, the example in the tutorial does not use a verify email field for the registration page. My question is regarding the verify email text field. What I did was follow the same procedure with hidden fields in both text fileds and using the confirm password again in the newpassword.php. encrypting both. Is this correct?

For future reference, is it possible to by pass the newpassword page and use only the registration page with the double opt in?.

My apologies for asking so many questions, and obviously this is my first site out. I really need some reassurance because trial and error is making a mess of things. I think WA products are awesome.