Quick question: Are you wanting a new Light Bulb instead of fixing the Luminator?
A lighting system that uses electricity rather than being "free" would be nice, but I think the perception is that most players wouldn't use it since they would choose the free (Torch, Redstone, Glowstone) light source every time. Also, since they run on EU, and atm IC doesn't seem capable of sending fractions of EUs, it would have to use 1 EU per light. That seems way too expensive. Then there's the packet transmission calculations per tick for all those lights, and if you're talking about a city that could add a fair amount of work for the CPU/server.
I imagine something like this: You have a Light Control Panel that's 1/2 block that can have up to X number of lights assigned to it. Then you have the lights themselves, which have a GUI that allows you to set a number, which has to match the number on a nearby Light Control Panel in order to operate. Lights must be placed within Y range of the assigned Light Control Panel. No wiring between the Light Control Panel and the lights is necessary. The Light Control Panel then must receive electricity via wire. This would then allow individual lights to have < 1 EU consumption because they all get added together at the Light Control Panel. The panel would require a minimum of 1 EU to operate any lights at all.
Once that system was in place, then you could start looking at fancy features like replacing the on/off switch with a dimmer switch. It would be cool if it could be coded in such a way that the visible light could be reduced while still telling the game that the light level is high enough to prevent mob spawning. Add whatever cool ideas are desired to make it competitive with lights sources that don't require electricity.