Inno just added a new use for all the shard we get, ie they are worth 15 kp each if you donate them to an other members AW, or 10 kp if you put it into your own AW.
I've been been taking advantage of this new feature and leveling up all my AW's. The only time you experience the broken shards is when you are using them fill the wheel every fifth level up. That actually cost less shards than needing to add 1000 kp in higher level AW's.
You should not be wasting 1500 shards per year.
You gain both "rune shards" and "broken shards" during a tournament, especially if you go all six rounds across more than 10 tents
in the following fashion:
Round 1: 2 broken shards and one rune shard.
Round 2: 2 broken shards and 1 rune shard.
Round 3: 2 broken shards and 1 rune shard, plus 1 rune shard for each tent at and after 10.
Round 4: 1 broken shard and 2 rune shards.
Round 5: 1 broken shard and 2 rune shards.
Round 6: 1 broken shard and 2 rune shards, plus 1 broken shard and 1 rune shard for each tent at and after 10.
Gaining more than 30 is very common for players who run more than 30 tents for all six rounds (granted, this isn't something most people can do to begin with, but still). There just aren't enough ways to burn the "broken shards" fast enough to avoid slamming into the 10 broken shard limit. Unless you have a whole pile of Ancient Wonders sitting there staring balefully at you with their rune phasedness. Which used to not be the case. Still might not be.
(~30 broken shards /1wk) * (52 wk/1yr) = ~1560 broken shards per year.
I'll give you that it's horrendously wasteful to not wait on tourney to keep on going with your newfound sweet, sweet upgrading frenzy. Not so wasteful and more impatient if you're actually stuck with
all your AWs stuck in rune phase.
EDIT: Many times to improve clarity and consistency.
English is painful. And it's the only language I know!
EDIT2: Modified the math for proper and consistent unit conversions. Apparently math is also painful, and that was my best subject!