Desynthesizing Darksteel Picks?

[Armando]

I'm currently smithing 63, with only 3 levels of Nodowa spamming left...and then come the dreaded Darksteel Picks. Before the enormous inflation, way back when Darksteel Ores were 10k at best, this would've been a relatively painless phase in crafting; at this point, though, I'd lose in excess of 200k for every 12 picks I NPC if my numbers are right. That aside, there doesn't seem to be any cheaper or more viable recipes...has anyone experimented with desynthesizing Darksteel Picks instead of NPCing them? Is Elm Lumber among the possible outcomes? (I'm guessing it is, but a guy can hope otherwise...) How common is Darksteel Ingot? What's the average loss?