Originally posted by Nerevar:

if they withhold both till ashlands well that defeats thier point completly by then. as you may aswell then just grab ashlands gear already which WILL be superior anyway.

This is how it's done with the first two tiers though. The idea is that if you need only upgrade your forge one time, and you probably already have tons of materials to level up your weapons/armor lying around. So your first jump into a new area is to improve the old area's equipment which lines its stats up on par or nearly on par with the first tier of the new stuff, of which they assume you probably don't have a massive horde.

Think about it:

HIde armor requires the Adze to upgrade to maximum quality, which is a Black forest tech.

Bronze armor lvl 4 needs the Bellows, which comes from the swamp drop of Chain.

After Iron you will have access to all 7 levels of the forge though.