Same here, so I assumed Violet meant shields and voted for water. But after reading it again, I don't have a clear answer. For SP, definitely lighting over water. But in MP, my vote goes to water. In online games, lighting is sometimes just an extra distraction. And in my case, it lowers my FPS in 16-bit. Sometimes I leave lighting on and sometimes I don't. It's usually off when I'm playing all out.

All that aside, if I had to choose which one is better overall, I'd have to go with lighting. It can add to the atmosphere of a level and make the eye candy look significantly better. If the color of water could be adjusted in 16-bit, I might've gone with that.