I've also noticed that some characters on the other side of an object like a wall will throw a shadow. As you've said, it really offers little, so it's been off for some time.
With the FPS Optimizer and the Tweaking ini file running, I get about 10-15 again in Balmora, and 15-25 on the road at a distance from it. The former is with visibility set to 0%--seemingly, whether distant visibility is at 50% or 0% doesn't matter, I can't ratchet up FPS in Balmora to anything above 15, and it sometimes dips towards 8.
