Wow. Thank you! What an interesting round about way... It wouldn't have occured to me ever...

Unfortunately, this brings me back to the necessity to render my scene twice (since I have transparencies, which need to render properly as such.) Or is there another way around this too?

Another possible alternative: what is a best way to immitate the distant light while using something which has a limited distance range? The spots have an obvious dispercion point, at least within manageable distances. While the whole benefit of the distant light is the parallel direction of rays. Is there a way to fake it?