No problem Vt, that is what we do here. If you can afford it and don't mind adding nutes regularly, I would suggest Promix. It is not really a soil, more of a hybrid soil/hydro. It is peat moss with vermiculite and some starter nutes added to help get your girls through the first few weeks of growth. It is a very high quality mix and generally pretty easy for new growers. It is what I started with and have never used anything else. It is a little pricey at about $40 per bale, but one bale with get you through about 20 5 gallon grows so it really only costs about $2 per plant. You can normally pick them up at any good coop or nursery and it doesn't look suspicious because almost all good gardeners use it for starting seedlings.
Your germ rate should be 100% with DP! I absolutely love their genetics and they are top notch. I wouldn't suggest transplanting. If you are going to start them in rockwool, that isn't a problem but get them in their final containers before the roots start coming through the bottom of the cubes.
I don't recommend brands of lights because most of them are pretty darn good and it mostly comes down to growers choice. I have run Hortilux, Ushio, Lumatek, Sun Master and Sun Pulse. I currently run Ushio and have had no problems. I will say, if you plan on running a digital ballast make sure the bulb manufacturer will warranty your bulb with the ballast manufacturer. I run Lumatek digi and last year a certain manufacturer of bulbs that I did run quit warrantying their bulbs with Lumatek ballasts so I quit using them. Just make sure they are compatible. MH/HPS is king in my opinion but there will be some that disagree. Some people run HPS through the entire grow with Autos but I really like MH to start. I have had better results with vegging under MH. Regardless, you can use a good spectrum HPS thoughout the entire grow if you want. Veg is generally only 3-4 weeks with the Autos anyways.