...they say that not a lot of light is wasted at the 'tip' of the bulb... that most is emitted along the sides of the bulb (hence horizontal placement in fixtures in a flat grow).
many vertical grows don't actually even bother to use the 'floor' space, just using the walls. you have more sq. ft. of canopy, but the canopy doesn't seem to be equivalent sq. ft. wise (a flat canopy allows for better bud growth per sq. ft.)
the real benefit of vertical growing seems to be in it's ability to maximize a limited space. if you are limited more by Space than by Electrical Consumption, then VERT is the way to go because you can use the top half of the room, which would otherwise be wasted.
if space is not a limitations, but rather electrical consumption Is, then a vert garden seems to offer only marginal gains for the amount of increased time in the garden. I have yet to see a vert garden that blows a 2 gram a watt Flat garden out of the water (please share links if you have one)...
also take into consideration the VEG time needed to properly fill-out and train a vert garden. if it takes longer to veg in a vert, then any gains that you see per watt may just be a factor of increased time.
recently saw that ALL gardens should actually be broken down into a formular that takes grow time into a account... something like Gram per Watt per Week... so that the ACTUAL efficiency is determined.