you dont read enough.

I veg with T5 HO's and have been doing it for months now. In fact the growth is so bad I regularly need to prune back my mothers about every 2 weeks. I have 5 x 3' T5 Ho's which are what your friend is using. Use 6k bulbs for veg and 3k bulbs for flowering. There is tons of arguments for why to not use T5's during flowering, but I say go for it especially in your friends case. T5's run very cool given the output and come highly recommended for small spaces.

I will update my sig with some current pics but you can see my T5's in there.