I’m having exactly the same problem – I’ve created a panel of blinking lights which respond to sound effectors. Surprisingly cumbersome, as I had to do it with single spotlights which live inside cloners, having their size controlled by sound effectors. They would grow in size to become visible on beats. But when I started key-framing them for additional control, their intensity would fall off to zero despite being listed as 1200 in all inspectors and the timeline. When I manually adjust their intensity, they snap back to the correct intensity.
Did you ever discover a solution or explanation? Does it occur with other types of lights?
I’ve seen this over r13 and r14, on mac.