Which is odd, I wonder Why Satele is named Satele Shan, and not Revan's last name. He had one...I remember making him, obviously not everyone used the same name, but surely they could have made a canon name, they did for the Exile (Meetra Surik)
I agree with OP, it's very underwhelming, but having read Revan helps a lot. I'm okay with accepting his defeat, he was tortured for roughly 200 years, I'm sure a few level 30s could him up. (After all Revan only got to 25 in KOTOR)