Would you consider giving the grow lights some heat throw like they would in real life? This is one of my "core mods" that all my colonies ( minus test colonies) have 
Well that's already in the works actually, well a new UV Heat Lamp is anyway. It puts off a small amount of heat, enough to keep the plants growing at a bare minimum plus a few extra degrees for a safety buffer. It lights the same exact area as the vanilla sunlamp but it is unlocked in the Advanced Sunlamps research along with the Advanced Sunlamps. I have one issue to fix which throws off an error message but isn't a game crasher or anything, and I have to do the texture for it. I'm currently just using the vanilla sunlamp for it as well as for the advanced sunlamp. The advanced sunlamp is also being modified so that it can be used outdoors without causing fires in the rain. So basically the only things stopping me from releasing this are the lack of a suitable texture and the need to correct whatever mistake is throwing up the error message I saw in my last test.
also is it intentional to be able to build the outdoor lights indoors? You'd need some seriously high ceilings to pull that off (that being said I'd need to redo my indoor lighting plan
)
Originally it was done intentionally, but mostly because I didn't know how to restrict an object from being built under a roof at that time. I do know how to do that now however and I'll consider making that change in the next update but it's not high on the priority list since if it bothers you to build them indoors you can simply not build them indoors.
Last on my questions list, is there a way to stop the lit area from the advanced outdoor lamp cutting off? If I get a chance to get a screen shot later I will post it. It seems to be some kind of render issue when the lamp is built, wherever my screen edge is when the lamp is built is where the visually lit area ends (the game still counts the cut off dark area as "lit" ) it did the same thing in vanilla but the base model outdoor light doesn't do it.
No need for a screenshot, I'm well aware of this bug. Unfortunately it's not something in my mod causing it, it's a problem with the base game itself. If it irritates you as much as it does me seeing that problem then you can usually solve it by saving and loading your game again or saving quitting restarting the game and then loading that save. I've seen it happen on both of the outdoor lights. Never saw it on the vanilla lamps though but I suspect that is because they don't light up such a large area and the area they do light up is never on the edge of my map when I place them. Anyway, there is nothing I can do to fix it myself unfortunately. Sorry about that.