Let's be honest, upgrading is currently the thing that's holding jewelry crafting back the most. Even the sticker book set collection can't help there because you need to provide the upgrade materials for that yourself. The lowered cost of 4 chromium platings compared to other crafts doesn't help either if purple quality is already going to be trouble. ZOS doesn't seem to want people to farm jewelry upgrade mats into oblivion though, so I am suggesting this under the assumption that ZOS will never change the 10-grains system.

So here is my idea: What if deconstructing crafted jewelry gave you back full plating rather than grains? A similar system is already in place for crafted 160CP gear. Deconstructing it grants you way more materials back than dropped 160CP gear does. With this change the grind for new mats might not get more easy but at the very least you don't get punished too hard for actually upgrading your jewelry when the meta shifts again or you realize you don't like what you crafted anymore.

The current reality of jewelry crafting is that you are never golding out your jewelry. The power increase is just not worth the investment of 120 chromium grains for a single set of golden jewelry of which you can get 3 grains back at best and only if RNG favors you, which is ridiculous. At least with my proposal you would get a chance at getting 30 grains back rather than just 3. It would make upgrading jewelry less punishing without making the grind any easier. And even for purple jewelry this difference is going to improve the quality of life so much, so I really feel like this should be seriously considered.

What do you think?