Yes, but that is not the argument. Of course you can take the long road and upconvert crests and be well geared at the end.
The argument is if you do your delves correctly you have 31 gilded per week and can craft a 675 ilvl piece every 2 weeks. If you don’t do them correctly you get less gilded and move that craft back because it is not a cap on gilded you can get per week from delves. It is a max you can get each week, if you goof you can’t just run another bountiful 11 to get back to 31. It is poorly worded in game so there is no way of knowing a tier 8 map only gives 4(unless you research everything before doing it and what fun is that)