amoringello wrote:
Basically, hate to go against your wishes, but you get what you pay for.
Is it acceptable? Quite honestly, it might be!!

Alien Bees are very popular here. They are relatively inexpensive.
But they are not consistent with color and power. (shoot ten photos and you probably have five to ten different results).
Still, there are pros making lots of money using these things (see Zack Arias). They know the limitations and find them acceptable.

For the most part, the client may not notice a 300K change in color or a 1/3 stop change in lighting.

But if you were doing stop motion and piecing together the images into a movie... darn right you'd notice!
Or if you need to have color correct lighting for a product - a big name product for which your client pays millions of dollars a year to ensure the color is perfectly matched on every item they sell... they will want to make sure your images are reproducing that color correctly.

Which is right for you? We cannot answer that.
Take the info for what its worth.

As you figure out what it is you're trying to do and what it is you want as a result, perhaps you'll find you have more specific questions that we can help you with.