As Cris said, florescent lights aren't something you probably want to use to illuminate the things that you're shooting. They're just fine to have in the ceiling for other non-photographic purposes. When you're ready to do a shoot, you turn them off and go with your fancy strobes.

Among other things, overhead lighting casts odd shadows on people's faces. Do you want dark eyes and shadows under the nose? No you don't. If you're shooting inanimate things, you still want the flexibility to rearrange the lighting to emphasize or deemphasize things. For example, if you're shooting some kind of deliberately wrinkled cloth, then you want to light it, at least in part, from the side so you get lots of shadows that emphasize the depth of the wrinkling.