There is nothing wroing with the PAUSEUS command, but if you using a variable after the PAUSEUS, it should be a WORD variable.

Without looking at your code, there is no way of knowing what effect the longer delays may have.

Anything that requires close timing should be done with a timer. Even if you aren't using interrupts, you can use a timer by setting up the prescaler and clock source, and turning the timer ON. When you want to start your timing interval, you clear the timer, and later on in the program you can sit in a loop until the timer is > a certain value. The upside is that you can do other tasks after you start the timer, and as long as the tasks don't take longer than your desired time interval, timing will be maintained. And this technique works especially well if you DO use interrupts, because the interrupts can "steal" time from the main loop, and make the PAUSEs take longer than their set value. Using a timer keeps timing perfect.

The downside is that at 40MHz, TMR1 times out in ~52mSec even with a /8 prescaler.