I ended up forcing shadows on fragments who's normal was facing away from the light.

That is actually what I was saying. Now do the other thing I said which is render into the shadow map with culling GL_BACK, so taht front facing triangles render into the shadow map, just like how normal rendering from the eye works. Then you wont have those awful bleeding spots around the areas touching the floor.

Ah I see what you mean now. I"m culling GL_FRONT on the shadow FBO right now. I'll try that tomorrow morning first thing.

I rendered out a video with some different shadowing techniques that I tried. I'm getting closer to the results I want. Almost there.