I remember the original kotor were a jedi padawan had fallen to the dark side, so you had to beat the hell out of her to turn her back to the side of righteousness. Because the best way to show the flaws in the dark side is violence.

I think the issue is the lightsaber fights are really cool, but lightsaber fights are difficult to program... so the makers don't want there to be an option that reduces the amount of lightsaber fights.