Firstly I havn't been on this site for a number of years since I retired from DJing, however I'm thinking about getting back into it. A lot of new lighting has come out since I was doing it. Yes duty cycles can be a problem unless you have enough various pieces of lighting. If your just starting out with a few lights, best to go with run all night (no duty cycles). I just recently went to a gig and the DJ there only had 1 piece of lighting. It was the REVO III. It actually did an outstanding job all night for him. I was totally impressed and will be buying one the first chance I get. All of my lighting right now is fairly old, and I'm going to be looking into newer pieces, REVO being the first one to get. I sorta made the same mistake myself when I first started out be buying the LOTUS. Great lighting effect, however it also had the 10 on, 10 off cycle, and until I actually purchased more lighting it didn't get taken with me much. Right now I have about 30 pieces of lighting from Roto Pods, Mini Gems, H2O, Party Gobo Light, Saga's, Laser Widow, Vertigo's, Mirror ball, fog machine, and the list goes on. Once you've got a good base of no duty cycle lights you can then add those to it, or if you just go all out and buy a whole wack of stuff with duty cycles.
Really though,,,,check out that REVO light, simply amazing.