And they've now updated the link with this new text - which I hadn't read when I posted (bolding is mine). It effectively means I'm stuck with the older look because I can't play on high settings with my graphics cards. I wish I could unpatch my game - I never had any of the bugs previously, or if I did I didn't mind restarting the game.
http://forum.bioware.com/topic/532511-dragon-age-inquisition-patch-2/
"Before Patch 2, released December 9, shader quality for all PC users was being forced to run at Ultra. This impacted the performance of low-end machines and caused some unintended visual artifacts for users whose mesh quality was set lower than Ultra. As a result, users with Low or Medium mesh settings saw hair that was shinier than expected.
We attempted to address this in Patch 2 by binding the two settings so that mesh and shader quality were always the same. However, this fix wasn't properly implemented, and it forced shader quality to Low. We provided a command-line workaround Tuesday, but that still required players to ensure that the new shader quality matched their mesh settings.
This hotfix will correctly bind the mesh and shader settings and eliminate this issue. However, now that shader quality is being set correctly for everyone, players using lower settings will notice a decrease in the quality of visuals. This includes the removal of some features such as scars and freckles.
Most notably, the lower settings do not support blending of the age layer, so some users may notice that their Inquisitor (or custom Hawke) has aged considerably. And while this change is how it was originally intended to work, it could be understandably frustrating for people who created their characters before Patch 2.
If you would like to correct this change, you can set your mesh quality to High or Ultra. This will enable features that are disabled on lower settings, but may impact your framerate and performance."
