good news is my extendeddata reader is still bullet proof and reading the extendeddata correctly
The 'problem' in the charactersbodyparts.gr2 file is actually self created
I'm not displaying the data correctly from it because my app gets confused when it encounters multiple entries of extendeddata with the exact same name. This will be a tough one to figure out a solution for as far as retrieving and setting extendeddata for those multiple items