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Other then the larger gauge wire to power lower voltage lights, I've heard that lower voltage lights produce more light per watt for the same reason, assuming that you are using incandescent bulbs.
you are going to have an easier time finding LED marker lights, trailer lights, and vehicle bulb replacements, CFL's are not going to hold up to the vibration of the road as well and they are not directional like LED's are, some LED's have a 180 degree beam spread while CFL's will be shining as much light at the vehicle as they shine away, good for lighting up a room bad for lighting the outside of a vehicle.
If you want lights inside your van you can get a lot of 12v LED's, or you can go to most any store that is selling light bulbs now and buy LED's as well, for head lights you might be best off with HID head lights, high power surge when they first turn on but they tend to be lower over all wattage, you might also look in to getting fog lights.
Either way, every time you convert energy from one form to another you get losses, your inverter has losses and you have to figure that in when comparing the line losses from lower voltage wiring for 12v bulbs, most smaller inverters like your 1kw one tend to be around 85 to 90% efficient and I suspect that you will see less then 5% loss in your 12v electrical system if you have good connections and proper sized wire for the draw.
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