The 4 shadow casting rule thing confuses me. Is it really per cell? If we have rooms defined so that no more than 4 render at a time, could we have more than 4 then within, say, a single dungeon?
If its 4 per cell that seems extremely limited and I can't believe the entire of Skyrim was made under such a limit.
As Adolon says, it's 'Per users screen'. The game renders everything in front of you unless it's culled (Not rendered) by a roombound. This means that if you had a cell that winds a lot and has lots of turns and roombounds, you could put many many shadow casting lights in it. It's just 4 can be rendered at once before it goes bonkers.
Most of my interiors have like 7-13 shadow casters, depending on the cells size. I use shadow casting lights for about 40% of my total lights.
Only use them where it
really helps. If you have an open smooth hallway with nothing to cast a shadow, don't use a shadow light.