Wait a minute, first you say they are not lost permanently by doing a backup, and then you say "you can restore them BUT they are lost permanently when you Unlock Bootloader and they are not working"
wtf?
Sorry for my bad english,
DRM Keys are lost permanently "when" or "after" Unlocking Bootloader, so they will not work anymore, right? because they are lost. Your phone still working well but something apparently is affected like the Quality of the pictures.
Like
@gregbradley said, If you made a Backup TA you can restore them by Relocking Booloader, they are working only with Locked Bootloader.
So why Unlock Bootloader? to flash Custom Roms with Custom Kernels. To get just Root you don't have to do it and Restore TA (Bootloader) can be done on Stock Kernel only if not you can brick your phone.
I hope I clarified.
Just a language barrier I think
..also I wake up few minuts ago...
@Gnubaver I forgot one thing. Losing DRM Keys (Unlocking Bootloader) mean that some features will be affected or not working like BIONZ Processing, X-Reality and Bravia Engine.
Somebody said that after Unlock Bootloader on 4.4 the features still working. On 4.3 with some fix X-Reality is back, ecc...all this was not confirmed yet if it's true but I think many Devs are working on it. For sure there is a lost in Quality on Pictures because of BIONZ Processing, so at the moment I will not recommend to Unlock any Bootloader, if not on your own risk.