I'd like to see diaries by people that are us...

I experimented with side lighting. I kept a normal powered light on top and then used KIND LED bar lights on the sides to fill in the shadows below. It looked cool in the tent but I was not happy with the results. In my experience when you do it right with light from above you can get most of what a plant can produce. Adding side lighting and trying to get additional yield from the bottom of the plant didn't add significantly to the yield. Normally I would trim off the bottom flower/bud sites so the plant can focus its energy to the buds on top. Putting lights on the side I then left lower bud sites grow. The plant was trying to grow more buds but they didn't do too well and yield was about the same. Smaller prime buds on top and more/bigger popcorn on the bottom. It wasn't a loss but there was no increased yield for the expense of the four extra lights (I had one in each corner of the tent, go big or go home...) and I ended up with less prime and more popcorn. What I am doing now is high quality white light with decent horsepower above and being emitted from a large area. The light coming from a large area is good for reducing shadows so more/all flowering sites get good light from all sides. I also hang my lights a little higher and run them at higher power. This gets most of the plant in the cone of "good" direct illumination instead of just a hot spot in the middle.