I agree that solar are not good.
If you go with hardwired, you need to stay a certain distance from the pool, there are codes about that. I vote for low voltage, I think the outlet boxes for high voltage are just so ugly, near impossible to hide. You don't need that much power, it isn't an airport runway. You can get 20 watt, 35 watt or 50 watt low voltage bulbs and do all the lighting you need.
Look at some used bookstores for a book by Ortho Books called How to Design and Install Outdoor Lighting. It is really old and has probably been updated, I probably got it at Home Depot. It will cover the basics of how to use different effects; up-lighting, down-lighting, silhouette, wall washing, when a beacon is appropriate, as well as voltage loss calculations and what gauge line to use.
There are several online sources for fixtures and bulbs and I have found that my local irrigation parts store has a lot of decent products at close to the same price but that is probably not typical. Just get metal fixtures, not plastic and use the higher quality connectors, the grease filled kind, with caps. I found these at the irrigation store, not at big hardware stores.
We did the lighting for the prior house and I had a lot of fun doing it. This house had been professionally done, probably more lights and higher wattage than I might have used but they did a nice job. Keeping that many bulbs maintained is a chore, I will point out. In the old house we put several lights up in trees for moonlight effects -- looks really nice but what a pain to get up there to change bulbs. As the years passed, the squirrels chewed some lines, the tree grew over and broke some lines and I worried more and more about my husband way up there on that tall ladder.