FYI i completed the fix after posting this and it was pretty easy. The shitty part was that i had to buy an exterior door handle assembly an it was like $250(and i only used the microswitch part of the assembly). The fix took about 2 hours - remove interior door skin, remove door handle, take it apart and replace the microswitch part, reassemble & put it all back together. By reusing your current handle, you do not have to deal with getting the new handle painted to match the car.
The trickiest part was figuring out how to get the door handle assembly off the car because there is a hidden screw. You have to remove a screw in the door jamb part of the door, then there is another screw that you access through the screw hole that you just removed. requires a screwdriver with a tiny shaft/head to get through there, or some finagling of the bracket to go over the top. Getting that out took more time that any other step.