Fuses of Unlocked Superstars

TL, DR: Better shard system that gives credit for unlocked rarities.

One thing that I find quite frustrating is the fact that you essentially don't get credit for pulling a higher rarity poster for a wrestler that you already have unlocked. Let me give an example:

Let's say that I have Lana (just an example) unlocked at 4sb. I get lucky during a loot pull and get another poster of Lana at 4sg. My only option is to fuse that 4sb into a 4sg. Theoretically I could enhance Lana directly up to 4sg and then that 4sg poster would turn into 2000x shards (I think, but I've never been in a situation to test this).

To me, this doesn't make much sense. For instance, if I pull that Lana at 4sg first, then pull the 4sb poster, I'd get 1200x shards out of this sequence of events. But if I pull the 4sb poster first, and then the 4sg poster, it's almost as if I'm punished by losing out on the extra shards.

The same goes for fusing up with shards. Let's say I've got that same Lana at 4ss, and the fuse point is 4sg. Does it make sense that I need to collect an additional 2000x shards for the fuse when I've already got the character unlocked just one tier lower? I get it, I could just enhance the 4ss up to 4sg, but that's not the point. I should get credit for the level of the character that I've already got.

Here's what I'm suggesting. If you've got a character already unlocked at a certain rarity, you should get "credit" for that rarity. Using the example above, let's say I've got Lana at 3ss. Since that would normally take 400x shards, when I go into my roster, I should already have 400x shards out of 2000x towards the fuse.

Now wait a minute! I hear you already saying, "well you could just use those shards to level up moves and now you're double dipping!" Not so. I would propose that these shards be a "credit" only and would not be usable in place of TP. To clear this up in the roster screen, perhaps the first 20% of the bar would be greyed out, signifying that your 3ss character is contributing those 400x shards but they are not actually usable. Once you get the additional 1600x shards for the full fuse, your 3ss would fuse up directly. This would be much more useful at higher rarities, as a 4sg R-Truth could fuse up with only 1000x additional shards instead of the whole 3000x that is normally required.

The last piece of this would be hollow stars. This may take a little experimenting, but I would think that some intermediate value between a tier below and the full star would suffice. For instance, if a 4sb is normally worth 1200x shards, a 4sb with one hollow star would be 1100x, and a 4sb with two hollow stars would be 1000x. Whatever amount it ends up being, it shouldn't go below 800x shards which would be a 3sg.

I think this would greatly streamline the shard system and get rid of the current feeling that fusing up characters you already have is a bit of a rip-off. Thoughts?