With the way the tier upgrade system is now, it is impossible for you to fail on an upgrade. The higher your skill is on tier upgrade the higher percentage of salvaged materials you will receive back after tiering your item. It is possible when you go to tier an item to get some bonus teirs 0.9 is tiered to 1.0,1.1,1.2, or 1.3
I do a good amount of tiering for friends society and myself and find that the lower items have a better chance of getting a .2 or .3 out of them. I am sure that skill level for tiering may play into this. I am not sure who the highest tiering avatars in the game but I know that most people are not to high as the old system required you to have two of the items and there was a good chance to fail and lose one of the items.
I am currently level 39 tier upgrade.
I know that Buzz and Auktuma have some good skill here as well.
Salty