Forge is flawed
Why would I ever waste resources on trying to forge anything but the max amount of stars equipment?
When I look at some of the gear you can forge, there are some resources that are required, regardless of the quality you try to create. Thus, trying to create anything but gear of the maximum amount of stars is a waste of resources.
If you really want to give people an incentive to use the forge to craft gear of less than the max amount of stars, you need to use different resources than what the best gear uses. Otherwise any resources used on 'lesser' gear will be a pure waste.