From someone who was brave (read "mad") enough to connect equipment to lightning rods with the purpose of studying the magnitudes and durations of strikes.
Lightning (Franklin) rods do attract lightning if within the step distance of the strike - if outside then the strike may well miss the tip of the rod.
Rods don't increase the frequency of strikes for an area, but most certainly increase the concentration towards the rods within an area.
Some charge dissipation does occur (and I have seen the corona off the tip of a rod), but not enough to prevent strikes (come on, it's just travelled a few thousand feet. ya really think a few feet of ion cloud is gonna make any difference?).
Conductors can be made beefy enough to withstand a full strike.
Clouds can be both negative (general) and positive (about 1 out of 10 average) with respect to Earth.
Points are better, spheres will have lower attraction ratios.
M.
