yea, your alot better off buying them from the AH.
when crafters make items like that, they are looking for HQ items. synthing a normal hawkers is meaningless to them, and they will sell at normal AH price, even if its taking a decent loss in gil, to get rid of it and buy materials for more synths trying for HQ. because when you synth 1 hawkers +1, it pays for all the losses you took 4 times over.
just because an AH price is high doesnt nessicarily mean it can be crafted any cheaper.