Recombinator adjustment suggestion (a pseudo-deterministic crafting method)

I'm not sure about the general opinion on the recombinator, but i don't think its that good. Yes you have a small chance to get a decent base. But to me it feels more worth it to reforge the item than throw the two out.

So I want to suggest a method for upgrading instead, or a secondary device that works similarly to the recombinator but for upgrading.
Lets say we have two items of the same class, item 1 is the base item that you want to upgrade. item 2 has a modifier that you want to place on item 1.
You give both items and select the modifier you want to transfer, and now it works similarly to the recombinator. you get a low chance (depending on the modifier tier) to transfer the modifier to item 1. In the process item 2 gets destroyed and on a success the modifier is added to item 1.

This still has us grind for our gear a lot, which the devs like. But allows the players to get gear on their own without relying on trade.
You can also easily adjust the success rate if the gear gets too good too quickly. Adjust the number of artifacts needed. You can also say this method cannot overwrite an existing modifier. So a tier 5 modifier cannot be overwritten by tier 6.

I hope others think this might be a good adjustment for the game. Its not fully deterministic as it still relies on the RNG of getting an item with the modifier you want and then getting lucky enough to transfer it to your base item. But it also ensures the player is no longer entirely in the hands of RNG