With all the talk in the other threads about insulation and keeping a tight envelope, it seems that recessed lights are the enemy of the same.  Are there any greener alternatives that anyone has any experience with?

Assuming your talking about pot lights, you could get them w/ an envelope which seals the hole pretty good and easy to install.
Or so I heard. Therefor you can install without the heat loss. Pretty much every harware can get this.
Cheers!

Only the holes in them!!! Not the lights per se.

I saw some can lights at big blue or big orange the other day where the box label touted them as being totally enclosed, sealed, or something of the sort. Also, Buildingscience.com has some photos showing how you can box in can lights so there's no air leak past them. Doing it right you can have your can lights and be green too!!

There are versions available advertised as air-tight, others insulation-contact, and either will leak a heluva lot less than the standard versions. But whichever you get, take a good hard look at it- seams aren't always as air-tight as adverised, and some are relying on some pretty cheezy gasketing between the fixture & gypsum for air-tightness. Be prepared to go at it with FSK tape or caulk/foam sealant at the time they're installed. Be sure to foam-seal any wiring penetrations to them as well. Most codes have a clearance-requirement between the insulation & fixture- "insulation contact" doesn't always mean exactly that, particularly in fixtures that can take high-wattage lamps.

Often there's no avoiding a thin-spot in the insulation over the fixture, but if you have room really pile it on once you have sufficient air-tightness and code-required clearances.

One issue with sealed/insulated fixtures is that the lamps run hot and won't last as long (particularly higher wattage compact fluorescents & LED replacement-bulbs. The LED bulbs in particular require sufficient convection cooling to keep from self-destructing, but better ones should be designed to self-protect, and dial back the power the temps get too hot.)

If you have sufficient ceiling height and wall lengths, cove/valence or cabinent-top lighting using high-efficiency (1.5-2x the efficiency of self-ballasted CFLs or best-of-current-class LED downlighting) linear fluorescents can provide glare-free high ambient light very efficiently. (Dimmable ballasts are available for very low profile very-efficient T5 linears now.) With downlighting the glare-factor often requires higher light levels to see well, but with glare-free indirect lighting your eye will compensate for lower luminance. But just a few "hot spots" of glare in your field of view causes your pupils to constrict a bit, and cuts into your contrast-perception dramatically. Your eyes normally have a logarithmic response to light levels for contrast, but glare reduces that capacity, and you have to crank up the brightness to regain the contrast perception.

Recessed cans/pots are very overdone, IMHO. It's always better to design the lighting system for best efficacy, not just arbitrary ambient luminance or just hackin' away whereever the fixtures might fit. A pretty-good online primer on the topic is available on the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute website here:

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/lightingTransformation/residentialLighting/buildersguide/introduction.asp

RPI has a whole lot of other lighting design material on their site- surf around for ideas.

There are also some lighting design freeware and demos around that take manufactures photometric files, eg: http://www.visual-3d.com/

With well designed low-glare dimmable uplighting you can use 1.5x higher efficiency linear fluorescent at lower luminance, providing the same visual acuity for 1/4-1/3 the power of CFL/LED downlighting. (I'd call that a greener-alternative.) If used in combination with downlighting, making at least 1/2 the power high-efficiency uplighting cuts the glare considerably. (Glare is definable in decibel differences in intensity between the bright spot and the surrornding field- if you light up the ceiling around a recessed light with uplightng the contrast is reduced.)

If you're committed to at least some recessted lights, the highest efficiency versions right now are ballsted (dimmable or otherwise) fixtures that use 4-pin (not screw based) compact fluorescents, with specular-aluminum trims/reflectors. But for about the same money the Cree LR6 LED fits most R30 fixtures, and while not quite as efficient as 4-pin CFLs (55lm/watt vs 65-70lm/watt) it isn't bad, has GREAT color rendering, and can be used with cheap dimmers. (It's the only LED can-light I'd personally consider, since the competition is considerably less efficient, has lousier color rendering, and some are less well designed for glare-factor.) Whatever fixtures you use, pay attention to the luminaire efficiency ratings. Black anti-glare trims cut the glare, sure, but they also suck up over 50% of the light in the trim- there are better, more efficient ways to design glare out of the system than cutting efficiency.

I took a computer class. The room was set up with fluorescent lights that pointed up at the ceiling, which was painted white, (the walls were gray). There was no glare. It was very easy on the eyes. The room wasn't very light, but you could read a book or view the computer monitor and there was no strain or glare. This set up was better than my office at work.