Yes, the space will most definitely affect the footprint of the light, just as raising or lowering it does. I would think your edge and corner drop off will improve.
I always am too, still. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to defol, I'm not going to recommend anything. I will say that for me, I have settled on less is more, and TARGET the leaf removal. The two goals are to get light directly on bud sites, and allow air flow through the plant. Your idea of putting the fans low and blowing up her skirt, imho, is a great idea. Whenever you do defol, you can put your hand above the middle of the plant and you should be able to feel the air moving hitting your hand. I try to go for floor fans blowing up and head fans blowing across, preferably oscillating. The upper fans are important, I think, in budding, when you get dense buds - it helps mitigate moisture to some extent to have moving air on the buds themselves, and I have found that a bunch of fans and a lot of moving air can also mitigate the Rh numbers to some extent. For example, the three sweeties I just harvested from the tent all had a ton of air blowing on them the whole time. I had zero bud rot or mold issues in that tent, and if there ever was a situation where it would form, this was it. The buds were crammed WAY too close together and I will refine the methodology next time. But it worked out cuz of moving air. My Rh was usually in the mid 40s on average, higher than I wanted, and almost 60% for a few hours each morning. But there was so much air that I don't even think the plants knew it. Lol.
You'll figure out defol. You have a ton of really experienced people helping you out. You're set up sweetly. This is going to work out really well for you.
