Upgrading 1H weapons is awful

[Sasha]

This is awful, being forced to buy both a sword and a shield and being made to upgrade them at the same time. It was so much better when we had to spend a little more than every other class.

I got my pld i170 sword and the tank trousers, I then beat bismark and got the i175 shield followed by a doman whetstone. So then i was left with half a dozen pieces of i145, some i160 and 2 pieces of i170.
I could not upgrade my weapon because I did not have the shield, didn't need it but needed to spend my law elsewhere.

This is a step backwards and is bad in general, there are many solutions from returning to the old system of spending more, making a 1H whetstone and a shield whetstone (that when bought cost the same total as a 2H whetstone) or even just combining sword and shield into one slot, atleast then you don't have to pretend to give us choices.

At this rate SE could just start making you upgrade all 4 accessories at once with a mega gemstone with no option to do them individually or something but taking away our options is a very bad thing.
I've already sorted things out my end, but this is very worrying and should not be used again.