The problem with the lighting system, like so much else in HMH, is that the engine is totally divorced from the actual game.
Who knows wether or not the lighting system is gratuitous or not (I suspect it is, but we'll see) being that there's simply not enough game available to be able to make an assessment. Colored blocks do not suffice when it comes to testing a lighting system like HMH's, you need some way of approximating what the actual environments are going to look like in order to make reality-based assessments. Even simple grass, wall and indoor floor tile placeholders would have gone a long way in this regards.