Lighting is like music, it has high, medium and low tones. Down lights that are badly placed can make people sitting below them feel like their getting the 3rd degree, or put another way being interrogated, of course that may be the desired effect
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It's a good idea to try and use portable lighting to see what it will look like before you install it, a table lamp with a decent shade on it can sometimes give a reasonable facsimile of a down light. Personally I find down lights used to either create a 'wall wash' or to illuminate a feature the best use of them.
In my house I use 3 basic forms of lighting, hooligan, florescent and standard incandescent bulbs. Florescent lights set behind a pelmit can be very effective for lighting alcoves and curtains. I use table lamps with eco bulbs to give me my low tone lighting and downlights for both high and middle tones. The middle tone to the room is effected by using the down lights as wall washers, this means arranging the light to reflect off the wall, this causes the wall colour and the light colours to mix giving the room a warm and pleasant background. High tones are used to put light on an objects or features I want to display. There is one other form of lighting that you may want to consider, that functional lighting which usually refers to reading light and such, these are often standard lamps or dedicated reading lights.
Dimmers have there use, but unless the lights are placed to give the best effect in the first place dimmers can often look as though there's something wrong with the light. If you correctly place your lights, and have sufficient numbers of circuits, dimmers become unnecessary. There are no dimmers in my home, yet I'm able to create something in excess of 18 different moods and scenes. I do however have eleven lights on 6 different circuits in my open plan living room.
Like music, lighting tends to be subjective, a matter of taste, however like quality we all know when it's been done well. My suggestion would be to use portable lights first to get the light where you really want it and that gives the best effect.
