The only time having unupgraded even could be an advantage imo is against gods with crazy fast rushes, and even then I dont think I have ever lost due to having only 7 light and wanting to play light, and I use rol/hope a lot. On the other hand, the extra point of damage reduction is absolutely huge in many situations, especially against gods with creature control where you only want to have a certain number out at a time. Even against Ferox, having the extra point is nice because it lets you get by with less RoLs and thus have more space for dragons to do enough damage to power through the bonds.
Edit: Also, if you have so few RoLs that you cant get 8 light quanta, having the hope one turn earlier (in the weird scenario where you get exactly 7 and not 8 light) reducing the damage by that low of amount isnt likely to save you anyways, whereas getting it the next turn and having it block an extra point ends up being very useful.