What is happening to the Lore Bioware

There is lore within the game. The writers and devs have established "the lore of SWTOR". It is up to individual players to establish their own place within the preset galactic situation.

How much a player conforms to the established Lore is entirely up to them. The Devs seem to be giving the players the full range of appearance options so that players CAN look however they want. The position has switched from the Devs forcing players to look a certain way, to putting the responsibility on the players.

I only play on an RP server. For myself, I have backstories for most of my characters. I try to make their outfits match their backstory, not necessarily their class. Some players just like to have their characters looking neat or in rare armor.

It's up to the players to choose how their characers appear. Maybe they have a backstory justification, maybe they don't.

For a while, back before Terror From Beyond came out, a lot of the raider in my guild enjoyed wielding black-core color crystals. It was a neat little bit saying "Hey, we've been able to clear this tough content. Doesn't this look neat and different!?" Once those crystals became more commonplace, a lot of switched back to the more standard white-core crystals just because it's more in line with the lore of lightsabers. Many of us have also kept our outfits in-line with our characters.

Some people like to get immersive within the game, some people like to stand out and wear uncharacteristic outfits. It's all up to player preference,

QFE! It was before this, but you're right...the Ewok was stupidly lore breaking.

I hate it and think it was one of the contributing factors to this game's initial sub-dump at launch.

No one wanted to load up a Star Wars game and be told what they look like. Heck, even The Force Unleashed gives you options to change your outfit, and it's a single-player game.

The real bottom line is that, like you, Bioware wanted to control the visual themes of the characters. Unfortunately, people don't want to be told how they are going to look.

Also, Bioware's version of looking "cool" is much much much different from their players......as if we need 2 bikini-recolors in every single pack, and backpacks, MORE BACKPACKS, GLOWING BACKPACKS, BIGGER BACKPACKS!!!! And it was forced on us with precious little choice in the matter.

I stopped playing my Jedi Knight for awhile simply because 100% of the outfit choices for "Republic Jedi Guardian" were Brown, had a hood up, and was Brown (unless I wanted to look like a Trooper, in which case see the Backpack comment above). If I can't like the way my own character looks, the one thing that's on my screen the entire time I'm playing the game, then I can't get into the game.

Lore has been watered down for a long time. It started with the color crystals....but then, it wasn't long before you could have a pureblood Sith running around as a Jedi or a smuggler using force choke (via legacy powers).

There is an Ewok in-game and your first example of lore breaking is lightsaber colors?

Yup, totally started with the color crystals. When they changed it to allow anyone to use any color crystal, thus allowing light side sith to use a red crystal. Totally lore breaking.

I don't know, the war has been going on for 20-30 years at this point ((hot + cold)) the number of Jedi/Sith you slaughter on your way through the story would leave thousands of lightsabers littering the ground like unexploaded mines in a modern war. The idea that somebody couldn't or wouldn't go around and gather them all up ((Jedi/Sith)) at this point is silly. Which means by this point and time both sides have huge numbers of crystals from the other side and seeing as the crystals aren't good or evil, they are just rocks... I don't see why members of each side wouldn't be allowed to take pieces and parts from the stockpile.

Just out of curiosity, but where in the official lore for Star Wars was it ever stated that the color crystals used in lightsabers was completely determined by the faction or side of the force a person was on?

I've read a ton of stuff on and about Star Wars but no where have I ever read that certain factions/polities were limited to the certain colors of lightsaber.

Again, not at all. There is absolutely no lore reason why a Jedi couldn't or even shouldn't use a red lightsaber crystal if they so choose, and vice versa. I do not know of a single instance where a Jedi or a Sith failed to ignite a lightsaber because they were of the "wrong" alignment for the weapon. Lightsabers are machines, just like blasters. If a non Force sensitive can use them without issue, then it's obvious their function is not subject to any kind of Force alignment.

I was being facetious. By their definition the original implementation of saber crystals was lore breaking, and the change to let anyone use any crystal was actually making it more lore friendly. This is because a light sith could not equip a red saber originally, and dark jedi could not equip blue or green crystals.

It was never faction based as the OP implies or wants.