As for Decon, locked items do not show up in the crafting window, so you may have an addon messing with that. They should not be there if they are locked, and you can lock from the crafting interface now.
With Regards to Improvement, a compromise so people could upgrade something they has stored for future use without going to the bank to unlock it first.
The best way for now is to use an Inventory Mule and put long term storage on them. Or, you could unlock the items you want to improve, then sort the list by status. I think you can sort by that indicator, not at the game right now. I know you can do it from the inventory window.