Hello,

This forum has been sort of dead lately, so it may be a while before you get a response from someone else.

I have germinated tomato seeds in 1 inch peat pots (The six pack tray). I then transferred them to 2inch individual peat pots before ultimately transplanting them. I had a friend who planted his directly in a 2inch pot, set the pots out in the indirect sun, and the seeds grew just fine. I have seen others recommend multiple repotting in order to get a nicely developed root system, but I have not experimented with this yet. It may be a good idea to post this question in the Growing Tomatoes Forum.

I used two fluoroscent GROW lights, and the seedlings grew just fine. Others have said to use both a cool white bulb with a warm white bulb and the seedlings should grow just fine as well.

If you can give them true sunlight that will beat any
artificial light hands down...but if using fluorescent, note
that a single standard fluorescent bulb will not be near
enough light. Personally i would recommend having at least
4 bulbs...and using a mix of colors Grolux / Daylight /
Cool White (sometimes also i'll use a blacklight or even
better (but expensive) an Actinic 03 bulb to help 'harden
off' the plants against sunburn.)
Note: whatever light you use, when its time to move them
outside... do not place them directly in the full
sunlight or they will be essentially sunburned! Instead
start by putting them in shade and gradually increasing
time in full sun.
-----------------
As far as transplanting, i'd say just put the seeds in
small pots and don't transfer to a larger pot.

I started everything under artifical lights this past season, generally using a mix of "full spectrum" daylight compact fluorescent when the seedlings were small, and moving to T8/T12 48" shop lights when they got larger. I ended up starting too soon so my transplants grown completely under fluorescent lighting were 12-18" tall. 2 things that are the caveats:
-Hardening the plants before moving them into the garden is very important.
-A fan or other regular stimulation(brush the plants lightly or something) of the plants is required while they are seedlings to establish some stem thickness, otherwise they won't survive the transition outside. Unlike hardening, you have to do this at the outset.

Although I have a couple of "grow" bulbs, I haven't noticed a big differences between them and regular spectrum bulbs. Not enough to be worth the purchase of a specialty bulb anyway IMO. I've settled on a mix of common bulbs, but I use a mix of 1 warm and 1 cool white type bulbs in the shop light fixtures. It seems to work well.

A study out of a University of Alaska extension office found that with some exceptions(i.e. your African Violet type plant that has specific flowering requirements) most plants intensity was the key more then bulb selection.
A summary of that stuff is here:
http://www.planetnatural.com/site/xdpy/kb/fluorescent-lights.html

I can't find the original just now, it's a little more dry though, and the above excerpts the important info anyway.

Container-wise, I start my seeds in a folded damp paper towel, placed in a tupperware container and set on top of a warm heat source(heating pad, top of fridge, electric water heater). Most seeds germinate in Lastly, I also noticed this forum is very slow/deadish, and went elsewhere to a more active(and nicer interface) place.

take it from a crop-grower like myself who is also on a budget: the best lamps are plain cool white 4100K, buy the ones that give the most lumens like XHL TCP T8 lamps, that only cost about $2.75 each. The lamps will last for more than 6 years, with normal use. if you want stupendous growth, then OVERDRIVE the fixture (scroll down to overdriving thread to see how), but YOU DON'T NEED TOO, use 2 or even 3 shoplight fixtures side by side, total of 4 or 6 tubes, 4 to 6square feet, and you can grow 4 standard trays of seedlings under this light. since you're wanting to grow good sized tomato bushes, use 5" PLASTIC square pots, 8 plants will fit per tray. Do not bother with tiny peat pots, you are after nice big bushes that will really get big once you put them outside. Since your seeds are expensive, first practice with cheap seeds, in the same way as I practice with bird seed, before planting cannabis seeds, which cost $10 - $15 per ONE SEED. If you wish to use 1.5 or 2" peat pots to germinate, and transfer to the larger plastic pots when nicely established, you may, especially since you tell me your seeds are pricey. Start your seeds about 6-8 weeks before the date for putting them outside, but you be the better judge of this than me.
This forum is kind of dead because the format is really primitive - I wish the owners would buy some modern software, otherwise I agree, it sux. I would really like to know the name of another gardening forum, some place more active. I belong to rollitup.org as well, it's a nice cannabis growing forum, but still even that place uses fairly old kinds of software.