As an old BF-veteran (since BF2) i am also affected by this - i call it - bug.
I followd every hint and talked to EA-support (with no answer - first time no reaction to 3 tickets aboud the same problem) but nothing helps.
As rookie234 told, i use folder-redirection to redirect my data-subfolders to another drive.
I also use a second computer with windows server-network - the personal data there ist also redirected to our server. The same problem appears!
Some backup-tools also got problems with it. Renaming the PROSAVE, defender-exception or other things aren't my problem. Also the files will be generated, replaced and synced from game oder cloud.
I test everything without cloud sync but results are always the same.
In my opinion EA should integrate a switch or a hidden setting to disable this always-start-reinitialisation. I can't accept a bug like this exists such a long time!
I have to select sound etc. every start again and i have to watch the intro - i'm supposed to hate the game sometime because of that!
I will contact the support again and send a link to this post but i don't have much hope to get a solution to the problem.
Very brustrating!