Brittle honestly depends on the item and how it will be used. If it's a splintering item that you're going to use as a primary weapon, then you really don't want it on it; Items like this are usually things like Krysses, Bokutos, Spears, etc. There is some leniency with items that are used as secondary/support weapons, aka items you wont have in your hands 24/7 and only serve as a means to ensuring a kill... Items with special abilities such as double strike, mortal strike, poisoning, bleed.
It also boils down to the spec, for example a disarm archer would use a war fork/Butcher's Knife as a secondary item as they only need it to disarm and/or bleed. However a fencing or swords death striker might use a these low damage weapons as their primary weapon for their bleed/poison + disarm. An exceptional player with the presence of mind to take care of their items (aka taking 10 seconds out of their day to repair them) will be fine with imbued or brittle splintering weps. I imbued a 30% war fork for a friend of mine like a year ago and he's still using the damned thing.