[banditpowdercoat]

You will be fine. Nothing in code with Stranded over solid. Stranded acctually has more ampacity, due to the skin effect that electricity follows. Also, theres nothing wrong using larger wire than necessary. ie, 12ga on a 15A circuit. BUT, you can not go the other way. You cant use a 20A breaker on 14ga wire. Also, breakers are only rated for 80% continuous ampacity. Meaning, a 15A breaker can acctually only handle 12A of continuous current before it trips. On a current spike, it will trip at 15A. And yes, each outlet, or light socket counts as 1 amp. You can only wire 12 outlets or lights, or any combination thereof on a 15A circuit. Your correct on the averaging thing. but each plug can handle 15 amps, just not all at the same time