I wonder why KOTOR didn’t try to appeal to prequel haters by having Jedi be allowed to marry and start training as adults.
Attack of the Clones barely existed for a year at the time when KOTOR came out, so KOTOR was just following what was established there. Prequel haters weren’t a demographic on the radar because they just barely existed too.
Also notably as the player character you do (re)train as an adult, and characters like Jolee Bindo are openly critical of the “love” part, using characters from Tales of the Jedi as an example. You have romance options including with other Jedi and no one cares.
KOTOR 2 was largely about ripping the setting established by AotC to shreds, so it had to keep what was there to do that.