love the gutter and panel idea, too!
mrdizzle, how much quicker does it veg w/ horizontal? i've never read such a thing..curious.
what I have found is, if you throw cuts in your room under vertical lights, because the plants are so small, they are extremely far from the light, so the growth is very slow.
but if you prevegged them 18in under a 1000w or tek-5 before you introduce the vertical bulb the plants are tall enough to soak up some of that light.
its not to say plants grow faster under a horizontal bulb, because once they are big enough vertical blows away overhead lighting, you just have to make sure your plants are big enough and close enough to the vertical bulbs.