I know my opinion, but i really want to see others take on this matter.
i don't quite see it fair to use both salvage and steel to upgrade gear.
why? well my reasons are these:
1. you cant use salvage anywhere else than upgrading gear
2. you cant transmute salvage into steel
3. when you dismantle gear, you only get salvage, but no steel
4. its pretty hard to keep steel to both upgrade your gear, AND get outfits and other stuff (which aren't cheep i might ad)
5. the amount of steel you make its really low compared to the amount of steel needed to buy stuff in this game, so its a hard decision to take between getting something 4 your character and upgrading gear, keeping in mind that people usually don't use only one character
6. we dont really use salvage to anything other than upgrade gear as opposed to steel
7. the amount of steel necessarie to upgrade gear just one lvl its pretty high, not to say that it increase which each lvl