Loved the film, too. Felt it was the best Animal House riff since Futurama's first foray to Mars University.

Re: The lighting: As I was watching the credits the "Global Illumination Team" jumped out at me and I pondered if it was new as I'd not noticed it before. Come to find out in reading afterwards it was a new team to Pixar and Monsters U and its short (Blue Umbrella) were their first works. Definite kudos to them for knocking it out of the park and proving themselves indispensable to the film.