FTS vs Lucene

I have a SQL Server 2008 Express database that has about 1 GB of data. I have an additional 3 GB of small text files that I want to make full text searchable. In order to avoid the 4 GB Express limit I have been using Lucene for the text files.  Search performance is mediocre because I am performing a SQL search and a Lucene search and then merging the results.  My small size text files are not ideal for the Filestream field, but it would circumvent the 4 GB limit.  Would dropping Lucene for the Filestream approach offer faster performance?  Is there a better way; is it possible to search the Lucene index directly from SQL? ...