The gear progression of HW is fairly spaced out. Unless you are absolutely committed grinding the dungeons until you get a full set, you'll still be using your ironworks gear until well into HW, especially if it's augmented.

When I ran the HW dungeons on my primary, I was basically power leveling. I hardly ever stopped for new gear unless I needed to bump up my average item level to the minimum required number for the next dungeon. So, by the time I got to the level 57 dungeon I was still wearing some of my augmented ironworks stuff. I had to be a little more conscientious of my pull sizes and defensive buffs, but it was totally doable. Even the weapons have a pretty healthy lifespan. I had a Zeta Relic, at the time, and my custom stats were still better than most of the HW weapons for most of the leveling content.