Just to let both of you know, having looked over the mod's code, it seems as though nothing changed in 2.1 that would make this mod stop working.
Simply changing the info.json file to the following allows the mod to work in 2.1 without any issues (tested against 2.1.11)
{
"name": "quality_unlocked",
"version": "1.2.3",
"title": "Quality Unlocked",
"author": "Cee lo",
"description": "Unlocks all quality levels when quality module technology is researched\n\nFor Space Exploration compatibility: manually change quality from \"! quality\" to \"? quality\" in SE's info.json, enable quality mod support in SE settings, then install the \"Quality Unlocked - SE Compatibility\" mod.",
"factorio_version": "2.1.9",
"dependencies": ["quality", "? space-exploration"]
}