More space more problems. Reconsidering my lighting. Advice needed.

I wouldn't consider myself much of a newb but since i've upgraded from a closet grow to a tent grow i need some opinions since i feel like im starting from scratch.

These grows are all in soil. FF light warrior from seed then transplanted to FFOF.

My first successful grow was in the corner of a closet with less than 2 feet of height clearance. width and depth about 1 foot. I was able to harvest a decent amount of nirvana white widow using about 8 23w cfls. I did a 12/12 from seed and the harvest was a very smokable yield. I then started a grow in a 3ft tall 2ft wx 2ft d grow box using a 135w led lighthouse hydro blackstar on 12/12. I planted 2 reg seeds (1 x k.c. brains mindbender and 1 x nirvana white widow. The growth was great, i saw female preflowers on the mindbender but not much as far as flowers on the widow. During that grow i upgraded to a grow tent 36'' wide 20'' deep 63'' high. I left the country for 3 weeks and set up an auto irrigator and by the time i got back they were about 2 ft tall. However, im not sure if i was lacking on light for that volume in the tent but it was taking forever for pre flowers to show. The mindbender did look like it had female preflowers when it was in the box but i recently had to chop it since it hermied. Now whats left in the tent is the white widow which still hasnt showed much for preflowers under the led (it was planted around 5/20). If it turns out male ill be pretty devastated and out of frustration i might have to splurge on femmed seeds.
[h=1][/h]A big issue i have is temps. The attic gets very hot during the summer and i imagine it will get quite cold in the winter. With winter on my mind, i was thinking i should get a 400w hps system for the tent. That will definitely increase the lighting and offer some heat for my grow. I'm not sure if the plants just dont like the LED or if temps were causing it to not show preflowers. I figure since LEDs dont output much for heat, i can use that in the summer months and the HPS in the winter.

My main concerns are:

1. Why it took my plants so long to show preflowers under an LED when preflowers showed up much faster when i used CFLs in a closet. Its been 4 months since i planted my white widow under 12/12 LED and its still not showing preflowers.
2. Is it worth it to switch to an HPS system for winter considering the air being drawn into the tent will roughly reflect outdoor temps? (northeast US) I was considering keeping the LED + cfls for winter and just using auto seeds so the lighting (and therefore heat) will be on for 18 hours a day. i just dont want to spend more money on seeds since i still have so many photoperiod seeds.
3. should i focus on one plant for that grow tent? i had two in there and they were really struggling to keep away from the walls of the tent.
 
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