I finally got around to trying out the restoration mod. I fell out of the loop with its development for quite a while and did not even know it was released in some form finally when it first was. I found out about 1.8 getting released right before the steam re-release of the game so the timing couldn't have been more perfect.
I always loved KOTOR 2 but being able to play it in a form that was more intended made me enjoy the game so much more than I already did.
Many thanks to the people who made it possible to play a restored version. It was a pretty great experience and the only issue I had was the dialogue skipping by at lightspeed issue until the game was restarted a few times.
