there was never downgrade of items in l2, except burning items into crystals and removing SA, but u were not geting SA crystal and gems back. There was mammon, you could upgrade c grade stuff for aa but you couldnt downgrade weapon and get aa. You could enchant item to +3 but u never could go back to +0 and get 3 enchants back, you cant split full item back into materials. Changing gloves from light to robe is just same value item exchange, its not upgrading item. Epic upgrade is change into more valuable item so its different thing. there was actually option to downgrade skills to get SP but it had such a sh1tty ratio ( not many sp back and u needed to waste KE) that nobody used it. I think if u decide to upgrade epic, you need to deal with your decision and there is no way back. If you want to break epic into 4 small ones, just wait till u farm 4 small epics and exchange em with some1 who need to break it. If the guy quit as u say and he want "his share" he wont mind to wait 2 weeks until u farm 4 new AQs or smth and mail 1 to his character. If this epic jvl downgrade was implemented by ncsoft im sure they would make it with sh1tty ratio like with old giant discipline books and skill downgrade and you would have to farm some sh1tty items to do it or pay a lot of adena. l2 rules are brutal. A bit chaotic post, but thats how i understand l2 item upgrade logic