Rooms with high ceilings and no overhead light - who has the best solution?

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will look into hard-wired options later.

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This is your best fix.

if its living room, I assume you have ample attic space above? Hire electrician to install either 4 or 6 can lights into ceiling and add a chandelier as a center piece.

and/or wire in shelf lights to brighten the room, assuming there is some built ins.

Other than getting higher wattage bulbs for the lamps, adding can lights is the only option.

Google "low profile canned lights". There are a lot of LED products on the market now that are low profile and they are much easier to install than the old type of cans and also don't need nearly the room (depth). They come in different sizes (diameter wise) and also have some that are "eye-ball" that can be pointed/adjusted in different directions.

Attic above it or is there a floor above it?

If there is an attic it should be farily easy to catch a circuit and add some LED can lights. If its a lot of trouble to fish the wall use a remote switch.

If there is no attic opening up the walls and ceiling enough to hide wires is the preferred method.

Neither is cheap.

If it is tray ceilings do you mean there is a soffit around the perimeter with a lower ceiling and then a step up to a higher ceiling? If that is the case doing some LED strips along the step should be pretty easy. Its also really easy to hide wire along most tray ceilings....keep it close to the moulding and run it neat and its possible to make it look like part of the moulding...or, if not, add a strip of moulding and hide it behind it and fish the wire from the tray to the higher ceiling and do can lights. or put them in the lower ceiling. Or do both. Its not going to be cheap for an electrician to do it but it is easy enough for them to do it....since your aasking I am assuming it is not something you wanted to do yourself but if it is it is not overly difficult....cut small holes, get a fiberglass fishing rod from HD (not an actual fishing rod) and get after it. Its a pretty simple if tedious process.

Quick fix - string lights, like people have around their patios.

For now? Man, I would just stick with the current lamps you have and get brighter lights. You can put LED strips where the wall and ceiling meet. It'll look like a college dorm room, but if it's temporary then that will be fine. You would just have to deal with wires being connected to that outlet you currently have.

When you do have to make a chance, you can take the outlet and move it into the ceiling by removing the wires and either adding a light fixture (can easily be mounted to a joist) or you can add a series of wafers that you can run across your ceiling. Not sure the area of your room is, but retrofit waters are an easy install.

All the dirty work would be cutting a hole in your ceiling and walls. You should be able to pull the outlet wires up at the top of the wall and find a way to work it into your ceiling. From there, more holes in the ceiling and joists.

Put one of these bad boys in there.