It is not just the strings; the lute must be really able to amplify the sound properly. The strings should be gut, but I would not use ones that are too low in tension. You can experiment tuning the lute down a whole step. As you tune the lute down, you will reach a point where you can play very near the bridge. On my lutes with very, very thin soundboards it sounds fine, but that could be some other element of the construction.
I think the sound is very interesting, it is not particularly hard to do, but ultimately for me has less total tonal range than other techniques, in particular in regard to tenuto style. Perhaps that can be done with more practice, but the sound has a very distictinctive attack. Another technique that is difficult to near do near the bridge is the soft crescendo, wherein a center plucked note builds resonanace after the pluck. dt To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
