Answers to a couple of Ruby's questions:
Yes, synthetic lanes are more resistant to wear than urethane-coated wood lanes. They never need any kind of resurfacing that I'm aware of.
Outer wrap thickness is irrelevant. What the outer wrap, or surface, is made of is the most significant factor in how much a ball hooks.
The weight holes.....think of it this way: Picture a perfectly-balanced hollow clear ball. On a perfectly flat surface, with perfectly straight rotation, it should roll perfectly straight, right? And it would.
Now take that same ball, and attach a piece of lead weight, such as a wheel weight, to the left side of the ball as you stand behind it....then roll it perfectly straight like you did before, with no sideways rotation, down a perfectly straight/flat surface...what happens? The ball will move to the left, towards its heavier side. The weight will basically pull it to whatever side you put it.
Getting complicated: You are allowed 1oz of imbalance towards you fingers, thumb, or either side. Weighing the ball on a scale, there is a punch mark that marks the zero balance location. There are ways of drilling that allow you to start off with a huge amount of imbalance, (well over the legal 1oz) then you drill a hole to remove the excess imbalance and get it back within legal limits.
Combine this with the bowler's rotation he/she puts on the ball, and you have all sorts of weird reactions you can get out of a ball.....you'll have forward rotation, some side rotation, then the weight block in the ball spinning on an even different axis.
I don't fully understand all the different methods, either, but I do know these are the basics of it.