I'd suggest introducing what can be described as "infusion", or "transmogrification" for the Archeotech Shards:

The mechanics: by fusing a fixed amount of Level V "donor" shards to a "template" shard one gains a percentage-based chance to add/improve the already present "donor" shard property on the "template" shard.

This should resolve the matter of semi-useless hoards of shards for the upper-level builds.