[skygazer]

I know what you mean, there is so much confusing and contradictory information out there.
My suggestion is anything written by LaBerge is a great place to get information on lucid dreaming.

My personal opinion is that you do not have to control the dream scape to call it a lucid dream. That awareness that you describe in the dream is all it takes to make it a lucid incident.

About the loss of ability to control the dream it may surprise you to hear that I think that is a good thing. When the ability to control is present, so is the ego, which tells me there isn't a deep connection with your subconscious, and that is where great learning happens.
However, for some people the control is what makes it exciting, they will tell you that is what lucid dreaming is about, but that is just one way of looking at it.