How to use reference to page number

For good or bad, I extensively use \autoref from the hyperref package. Mainly because it's simple.

Well there's a command named \autopageref{} which replaces \pageref{} and does exactly what I wanted. More info here.

How to use reference (cross-links) by their names

There are many ways to do this, see e.g. here:
http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=nameref

The way that works for me is the nameref command from within hyperref package. One possible usage is:

\section*{foo}
\label{sec:foo}

...
\nameref{sec:foo}

How to make references to equations

To have correct references of the same form to the equations use the \autoref{} command from within the hyperref package. This will also creat hyperlinks within the document into the referred equations.