I would have to agree. Most the dialog trees, except for Kreia, got used up quite quickly. The previous game drew it out by making you return with a successful planet before you could advance the dialog. But you did make advances. You also had NPC -NPC interaction that made things a little better also.
As for her training in my LS games, I went high DEX, med CHA and then gave her the best blaster I could, trained the support powers and kept her in the back in Jedi Support mode. She was effective in that role as long as I had Handmaiden or Mandalore as melee support.