So I think I was able to follow along with your advice.
It mostly works now. I started to experience the out of sync issue you mentioned with the light bulb material. I used a branch and is visible instead of the multigate.
Everything seems to work fine. The only issue is whenever I make the mesh visible again after pressing T, the lights are on, regardless if the lights were visible before the lamp mesh was made invisible. It’s really not a big deal, I’m fine with it the way it is, but is there a way that the lights can return to the invisible state when the lamp mesh is returned to being visible after pressing T?
Please be honest if what I did looks like a crazy mess! 
