I think it's a good idea, even with lose the mats. Which is just like reshaping anyway.I want to hone my veno's weapons, but with how they are now I'm not because the stats will automatically go down. It's that way for a lot of people with their weapons AND armor. Or they spend a lot of ec/st/warrior seals to hone and can't get it as good as how it first turned out. I've heard a many of people rage in faction chat that their honing made it worse and they couldn't even get it back to the stats they started with. :<
I tend to not gamble when I'm as close to perfect as possible.What I mean is that if something has +12 magic, if it's +10-+11, I'm not gonna hone because chances are, it will go down and you'll spend more time/money getting it back to that (slightly) imperfect stat, and you may never get +12 anyways.