I think you're correct, so far as the effect is reduced. Took me a while to notice it, but yes, I'm convinced that there is a REDUCTION in emitted light when firing a suppressed weapon. There is still enough light to give away your position easily, however. The ground is still illuminated.

Perhaps this is only preference, but I would imagine darn near no light or none at all would be more reasonable. What do you think?

For what it's worth, a feature like this would be tremendously useful. I'm running a role-playing campaign with my friends with myself as the Game Master and the players are trying to start up a resistance movement. Without the ability to persist the situation between game sessions, instead of being able to stash equipment neatly inside boxes or cars, we're literally writing down all of our inventory as we go. Being able to save would be great.

This. It'd be hugely useful, especially with how much easier (dare I say "fun") it is to use the 3D editor with Zeus.