not sure if you have to do the armorsmithing spec quests, but i did, and you throw away an atrocious amount of materials for the quests. i think it was like 120 mithril and 300+ thorium, thats just for the quests to get the specialization.\
i did them, im pretty happy i went armorsmithing. theres a few other blacksmith's in our guild that are going weaponsmithing, so it'll be nice to have a variety.