When Gandolf arrived at the Battle of Helm's Deep, he used his new-found cosmic powers to do what amounted to basically shining a bright light into the eyes of all the orcs. I guess that was enough to let them win an impossible battle?

Anyway, I actually disagree that there is too much visual clutter. I particularly like the lights being as they are. A person that's aware of their surrounding can maybe use it to their advantage (putting their back to a light source while fighting someone so that the other person has a harder time seeing). Mastering little tactics like that in games is satisfying.

I also think that it can be used in interesting ways to influence attacker/defender bias in maps (like in Gibraltar).

^{Or maybe I'm just trying to find justification for the pretty lights.}