Looking at your code I see you already have a 22x1 area light. Unless your
light is very long, 22 point lights should do just fine. That is not much
and render time should remain roughly the same. I've had as many as 600
light sources, by the way. Slow, but not outrageously so.
If you like, here's a macro that creates this array (I'm typing it without
POV at hand, I hope I get it right):

//End1 - one end of the string
//End2 - the other end
//Number - number of light_sources

#macro StringLight(End1,End2,Number)
	#local Jump=(End2-End1)/(Number-1);
	#local Count=0;
	#while(Count<=Number)
		light_source{End1+Count*Jump color 1}
		#local Count=Count+1;
	#end
#end

Margus

Michael Soda wrote:
> 
> First off, ...thanks for the suggestion.
> 
> But do you mean just declare a bunch of light sources at several points
> inside the cylinder?  I understand that the more lights I declare,
> the smoother the shadows, but also, to make that many lights,
> I'd greatly slow down my render time....
> 
> isn't there another way?
>

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