In my non-professional opinion, ceiling lighting of any kind or amount is not a replacement for undercabinet lighting. I had a kitchen with a LOT of recessed lights, and I still LOVED the undercabinet lighting. When you stand in front of the counter, you are usually between the counter and the light source, so undercabinet lighting is useful regardless of whether you have recessed fluorescent strips or cans or pendants, or any other type of light.

My new kitchen will have a lot of recessed ceiling lights, pendant lights over the island, undercabinet LED tape lights, and up-lighting over the upper cabinets. The big key, in my opinion, is to plan for layers of light. You want a lot of light when you are chopping vegetables, but if byou have an eat-in kitchen, you want to be able to lower the lights when you eat (or else you end up with a diner atmosphere, designed to get you to eat fast and leave).
Good luck - I hope I helped a little bit.

Recessed cans are good for highlighting room features. However, they're just about the worst possible choice for general lighting. You will have to make swiss cheese of your ceiling to even approach the high quality, even lighting you get with good fluorescent fixtures.

The large number of cans required wastes resources ($$$) and energy ($$$$). The energy waste comes both from the lower efficacy of the lamps themselves, especially when they are incandescent, and from heat loss through the ceiling in the winter.

Even though your fluorescents are recessed, they're still superior to small cans because the area radiating light is much larger. This reduces shadowing.

While they're out of fashion, your fluorescent fixtures are practical and economical. Unless you plan to sell your house soon, I suggest you continue using them.

If they're old, you may want to update them with modern electronic ballasts and high-CRI T8 lamps. That will cost far less than installing cans, and will noticeably improve your kitchen lighting.

To sum up - I recommend that you not waste your money on recessed cans.

Thanks for the responses. It sounds like I wouldn't be happy with the cans unless we had undercabinet lighting as well. So I'm going to stick with the fluorescent at least for now, since I don't want to get into the undercabinet lighting. My husband could do it (he's very handy) but his enthusiasm for it is really low, and I don't want to spend what it would take for outside labor.
I actually don't have any complaints about the current lighting levels - no doubt it could be better and I'm just used to the status quo - but I'll take a look at the cost of new fluorescent fixtures. Nothing wrong with being more energy efficient.