The fixtures you linked to are absolutely fine for new construction sheetrock ceilings. If you are going to use suspended acoustical tile then you will need a different model fixture that mounts directly to the tiles, not the floor joists.
In either case, you can lamp them with CFL bulbs which will burn cooler, less electricity. The only disadvantage to standard CFL's is that they can not be dimmed with an inexpensive incandescent dimmer. Always be sure to match the dimmer and bulbs correctly.
That explanation doesn't really make any sense to me personally. The neutral bus bar in your main panel should be bonded to the ground bus bar so in effect, all neutral wires in your house are grounded.
The third prong in a typical three prong outlet is known as the equipment ground. This is a safety feature that should cause your breaker to trip if an electrical fault inside of an appliance causes the metal body of the appliance to become energized. The equipment ground protection however is a safety feature for YOU so that you won't be electrocuted in the case of an appliance fault. It doesn't and shouldn't make any difference at all do the proper functioning of an appliance.
If an appliance you (recently purchased, older appliances may not have the same quality standards!) purchased has only a two prong plug, then it is essentially assured to not be an electrocution hazard in the case of an electrical fault, or it is not capable of having such a fault.
So basically what I am saying, the appliance you are talking about would never have been grounded anyway if it has a two prong plug. Grounding has nothing to do with the failure of your appliance.
You must have misheard because perhaps the tech support person meant to say "Ungrounded Neutral" which potentially could be a problem for sensitive electronics. The neutral (connected to the center tap in the main panel) can and does carry an electrical charge, so the neutral bus bar should be grounded to the outside through the use of a grounding rod to bring Neutral to Earth Ground.
If your home was built in 1959 then it is possible that the grounding rod was never placed deep enough into the earth to provide proper grounding, or perhaps it rusted away over time. How far the grounding rod needs to go depends highly on the region you live in too. I used to live in a home built in 1958 and had a similar problem. A qualified electrician would be able to fix this for you, or an adventurous DIY'er.
Best Answer
For jobs like that I am very fond of EMT conduit. It's a semi-improved space so it's a good fit. You lay the conduit (the metal conduit is a legit ground path) and then when it's done, you run the wires. The material cost is pretty good except you'll need a $30 bender and waste a stick or two of 1/2" conduit tube until you get the hang of the tiny offset bends.
However, EMT inherently connects the grounds of all those locations together, and
Don't "island" grounds
I heard you mention that your house wiring has no grounds, and your receptacles are grounded "to the box". That only works if the box is grounded!! and "grounded" means all the way back to the main panel to the neutral-ground bond and the grounding electrode system (the intertie to ground rods or water pipe). Otherwise, it can work against you.
Consider this. Imagine a 2-socket outlet that is grounded "to the box", but the box is not grounded. You plug a PC into one socket, and a plastic case battery charger into the other. Unbeknownst to you, the battery charger has a hot-ground fault. Ok, so the fault voltage is carried to the ground wire, and is safely grounded back to the panel, right? No, it's not. It lifts the ground wire, and thenunction box up to 120V. Wait, isn't the PC also grounded there? Yes, it is. The chassis of the PC is also lifted to 120V. You touch the PC and blammo.
The PC does not have any problems. It got electrified because of the ground fault over on the heater. In effect, your ”isolated island” of grounding worked against you - it assured that if one device has a ground fault, everything has a ground fault.
The upshot is, "no half measures". Grounds start at the link between the grounding rod /water pipe and the main panel neutral ground bond. Then grounds propagate from there. Anything else isn't really grounded.