I know what you mean about OFP having that special something that makes you keep coming back to the game
Anyway, about those lights.
The best way to light up any village would be to download a streetlamp addon. The editor upgrade has a few good ones. To light those up, you use the inflame command. The problem with addon streetlamps is that they are not as bright as the ones you find in, for example, Lipany. For cinematics you can setpos a headlight on top of the lightpole (the headlight object is very bright). The editor upgrade also has those.
When using those streetlamps you should place them sparingly; too many and you'll have a very annoying flicker.
The default lamps that are in place in certain villages are automatically controlled. The way you turn a lamp on or off is like this:
(object xxxxx) switchlight "ON"
Replace xxxxx with the object ID number of the streetlamp, and replace "ON" with off if you want to turn the light off, or "AUTO" if you want the light to be restored to its default setting.
You can't use inflame on the default lights. Think I remember my game crashing whenever I tried that.
Addon lights are your best bet
Hope that helps
Gruntage