Don't mean to step on anyones toes here but I thought I would throw in some of my thoughts as well. By no means am I saying that I am wrong and anyone else is wrong, just some food for thought. Anyways.. I've had a lot of success with planting the seeds straight into soil, instead of using the paper towel method. I have done both plenty of times, and I understand everyones conditions vary so what works for some, won't for others. But I figure that when you put your seeds directly into soil you run less risk of temps and moisture levels changing at a rapid rate, causing some sort of shock to the seedling. Soil takes much longer to change temperature, and much longer to dry out. In addition to that I think it is beneficial to have your seeds start in soil so that the root has to work a little bit to get through the soil, making a stronger young seedling. Also I've heard someone say if your seed isn't strong enough to push through the soil then its not worth growing anyways. Its not that hard to be careful when using the paper towel method and transferring it into the soil, but sometimes mistakes happen and you could injure the seed, I prefer to just avoid the risk all together.

The only exception to my strategy that I would consider as being beneficial is soaking the seed in water for a period of time before planting it. Since water is what activates the germination process it may be a good idea to give it a thorough soaking until the seed sinks, which should be about 24 hours or so. Even if it doesn't crack open by then though I think I would just move it to soil. I could just see a seed planted directly in soil without soaking it in water not working properly perhaps because of a potential small dry spot in the soil, or maybe somehow a little pocket of air surrounded the seed, or whatever the situation may be. I think its a possibility that your seeds could fail due to a mysterious lack of moisture, but I think thats would be a random isolated incident.

Also until the seedlings put out their second set of leaves I typically don't like to keep the lights too close to them. I don't think they require too much light initially and they're easy to burn or stress. Let them develope a little bit more of their root structure before you start in on power growing.

Anyways, thats just what I do and how I think about it and I have had good success rates. I think its always good to have different options and different techniques to experiment with until you have found something that works perfectly with your specific conditions.