Congratulations on starting your premier grow log here at Cannabis.com, Catbuds.
To comment on your question about my soil and lights. My grow medium is similar to yours. I have a 110 gallon outdoor composter for my little garden. When I get a chance I like to compost my used indoor soil in between grow seasons, normally in the Spring-Summer while I grow outdoors. In a very large tote I'll mix the soil with some kitchen scraps, brown material ( I did use leaf material this time as I didn't feel like screwing with making butter or hash), peanut shells (I'm a nut-a-holic), a dozen or two of earthworms and compost starter. I don't bring in anything from outdoors. In addition to the composted re-used soil I mix peat moss, perlite and amendments. These vary, dolomite lime, earth worm castings, composted/dehydrated manure, bone meal, molasses, bat guano, all kinds of shtt. I add one of many Espoma products with Bio-Tone to 'activate' the soil with 'bugs'. I will add mycorrhizae to the soil when planting by mixing with water and adding to the root area. Our water is hard so I use very little lime anymore.
I grow indoors usually during the heating season. We just started using heat again and yesterday the fuel truck filled our kerosene tank. I do have an exhaust fan in the grow area to rid the odors when necessary but I like to keep the heat indoors most of the time. I start the seedlings with the four lamp, 4' T5HO lights. I buy both spectrum, grow and bloom 3k and 6500k approximately). I use just these for the seedlings. Though I've seen others get great results using only the florescent lamps through veg or even through the whole grow I go to a 400 watt MH pretty early on. I've seen some folks get really good results with the VHO and UHO T5 lights. I just feel that is what worked best for me. I use a large box fan blowing across the plants and lights and manage to keep the temperature under 80ΒΊ.
I use 2' x 4' sheets of cardboard hung for reflectors and keep the lighting in around the plants. These sheets were mylar covered for years until it wore out and I painted them with flat white bathroom ceiling paint (anti-bacterial,mold). So the grow area can be from 2' x 4' out to as much as 4' x 6', if necessary. At the max size I use two 400 watt HID fixtures overhead and the T5HO florescent for back lighting.
As far as seed choices and plant size I found that I can grow almost any hybrid and keep the size under control even with a full eight week veg. I do crop early, twice. With the sativa run I'm doing now it is recommended that I go right to bloom light schedule from seedling stage. I know your feelings on this but experienced growers with these strains advise this. Even so, I want to give them a couple of weeks to start and 18 hrs of light to recover from the cropping. The bloom period will likely be 12 weeks and more.
This should answer your questions and many more you didn't ask (you didn't ask for this book, but we have no PMs here). You can find my grow logs (a lot of 'em) by clicking my name > latest started threads and see the list of grow log threads.

Good Growing!