melding lore gear

[Evangela]

You can.
Of course the materia will be lost

That's more like getting rid and not remove.

[Noxifer]

That's more like getting rid and not remove.

Late response, but...
Most systems that allow you to remove 'socketed' items (gems, runes.... materia ;p ) have two options: One is that you destroy the socketed items but keep the gear. The other is that you destroy the gear but keep the socketed items. Which would you prefer in this case? ^^;

That's a bit better, even so, rank 3 will take me something like 33 days to get

Yeah, that first rank takes ages, since you can only use 3 of your daily allowances. But once you get past that, it goes a bit quicker, since you can do all six of the quests with one tribe.