DicheBach

I think I recall a bug with those lights, your suspicion is correct, they are never really off. Remove the lights or cover them with dirt for testing and see if anything spawns. 

Tekkit guide http://wiki.technicpack.net/A_good_start_in_Tekkit
MC forums tend to be filled with babies that stick to the past. Tekkit Classic was the pack most knew 4 years ago. Tekkit Lite sprang up during Mojang's rush with a fuck-ton of updates, meaning that most mod makers had no time to update their work to match the MC version. It was also the time when SSP / SMP conversion happened. Hence the word "lite", as in fewer mods.
IC2 was fun back in the day. But it is a dead horse now and considered tedious and grindy by many.
Tekkit has Thermal Expansion by KingLemming, which is a much appreciated replacement for IC2

It doesn't "install". Just grab the .exe
from your downloads folder and stick it on your desktop. 

I typed in "tekkit lite sorting" in a Youtube search. There are lots that seem like they'll help you.
 
I vaguely recall that this "TheOnlyBentley" guy's videos are helpful.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTw3lFAcFmI

I suppose I could weigh in since this is my modpack (and server).
 
Diche: Here is a download link for the Current (1.0.5) JCLite packaged as a server with you configured to be OP and permissions group "Owner", as well as DynMap configured to work the way it does on my server.
 
https://copy.com/p177RU8RWpqC?download=1
 
Simply extract it and run the startserver.bat file and you should be good to go.

Setting up a server for Cauldron, which is essentially making a server for the modpack but using cauldron for launching the server instead of the modpacks respective jar file through the batch file (generally renaming the correct cauldron file to the modpack jar name and removing the other makes this the easiest)
 
Ie: Say I want to do this for attack of the b-team, I download the AotB server files, download Cauldron for 1.6.4, unzip the aotb server files, put the cauldron jar file into there, rename the BTeam.jar in there to like BTeam.old.jar and the cauldron jar to BTeam.jar, then I run it through the launch.bat file. It would then go through its normal process and you should see a new folder named "plugins" be made in the server folder. This is where dynmap would go - also, your world save info would be put into the "world" folder.

Modpacks:
Attack of the B-Team is pretty fun. Quite different. Tekkit (main) is fairly new and still evolving. Look for a PM. As for the inventory, is the search box at the bottom outlined in white or yellow? Try double clicking in the search box. That is part of NEI (Not Enough Items).