Firstly, rather or not Revan is Sith or Jedi, as well as if it is a he or she, is determined by your responses to Atton at the beginning of the game.
Everything you brought up in your third paragraph is answered through dialogue or cutscenes.
You can go to the planets in any order, and like the first, it really makes no difference.
After playing both both ways, I'd say KotOR II has more replayability (though I'm only half way through it now on darkside female with Revan the opposite of what I set her last time). You see and learn a lot more and things play out quite a bit differently.
Lastly, Lucas Arts was responsible for the early release. And how can you say 'I can't believe they okayed this game'? Have you seen ANY Star Wars game that is not Jedi Knight or KotOR? They aren't even close to good.
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I thought the game was alright overall. Not up to Kotor 1 standards. My biggest complaints.
Ending. Didn't make sense and you had to make lots of asumptions.
Party charaters. I liked the dialog better in Kotor 1. They were a lot more interesting.