You used the same battle tactics before dantooine as after?
/me confused as to why you would do that
I do agree that the combat really acts just as filler for the game, the story is why you play to the end, but its the same with virtually all RPGs these days, i personally found KOTORs battle system a hell of a lot more engaging than Baldurs Gate due to the added visual element of actually seeing combat take place (rather than just you slashing then them slashing), and Infinately more engaging than any Jap RPG ive ever played.
There were lots of tactics available, unfortunatly the game didnt really force you to use many of them and once you have a 3 jedi party the combat side of things gets pretty easy, even if that does make the adventure side of the dungeons more complex.
To answer the original question, the game after Dantooine is an entirely different animal, though what you get out of it is up to you, to get the best you have to interact with all your team members and find their motivations, the story is the real meat of the game and you wont really get the most out of it until a couple of hours before the end, so id recommend playing all the way through.