Newbie - controlling lights and creating scenes (Ocelot?)

["hholohan2000" <helen@xxxxxxx>]

Hi all

Please excuse me for asking what must be a very basic question.

I want to be able to dim/brighten and switch on/off most of the
lights in my 6 year old home using an X10 system. I've being doing
lots of research but still can't figure out something which must be
very simple:

1) Main room lights
Some rooms have low-voltage recessed lights in the ceiling and some
others have basic pendant lights. I want to be able to control all of
these without installing ugly X10 dimmer switches. Isn't there a
dimmable micromodule receiver that I can hide behind existing
switches?

2) Plug-in table/standard lamps
I already have a couple of plug-in lamp modules and these work fine
to dim/brighten the lights. I've also read about the socket rocket to
which the bulb can be plugged in directly. However, isn't there
something I can put in the wall socket itself to control these
lights? The lamp modules are fairly big and ugly.

I've read also about intelligent controllers, like the Ocelot, which
sound great but if I still have to use clunky lamp modules and have
no way of controlling the ceiling lights other than by installing X10
dimmer switches everywhere then what's the point? I've seen receivers
(LM12W) which can be installed at the ceiling rose but they have
fuses in them which would subsequently be very difficult to get at.
So, if I get an Ocelot, isn't there a nice neat fairly unintrusive
way of controlling all my lights from it?

At the end of the day, my goal is to have scene control. Even if I
get the Ocelot, will I be able to control multiple lights in a scene
simultaneously or will there be a delay while each light command is
sent out sequentially?

Many thanks
Helen (in Ireland)