mba, this may not be very easy with a desktop setup, but the length of the camera cable (about 2 meters) enables you to drum fairly near to your screen by placing the camera further back (see
http://aerodrums.com/manual/#setting-up-the-hardware , last paragraph for an illustration).
Making the camera wireless is a hard problem if you want to keep latency as low as it is in Aerodrums.
About the light, we are researching options for the design of our own sensor. One option is to use infra red light, but we would need to be certain that it is safe. Visible light has the advantage that you are aware of it.
(By the way, a setup with your computer screen near you and away from the line between you and the light will help if you find it annoying.)
We could not find a way to use a Kinect alone and still achieve the level of expressiveness that drummers expect. (And we're pretty sure it's not possible, but there are a lot of clever people out there

)