At present...

• The Nature's Compass recipe bypasses the need for a regular compass (it is not meant to be difficult to obtain).
• The Explorer's Compass does not bypass this, because it's ability to find Grottos is very powerful. A compass is very difficult to obtain-- if you have to make it from raw materials.
• Nosepass has been updated to (rarely) drop Compasses, specifically to make the Explorer's compass
• The smeltery recipe for melting down compasses has been removed. Otherwise, even at only a 5% drop rate, plentiful nosepasses would have become valid sources of iron and upstaged Aron
• There is no real use for excess compasses other than in maps, and with journey map installed there is no need for maps. They can't be salvaged.

Consider the pros and cons of making compasses require less iron, such as only 1 plate, or only four nuggets.

• I could reintroduce a compass smeltery recipe at smaller iron ratios, allowing you to salvage/scrap excess compasses.
• I could change the compass smeltery recipe that allows you to pour iron on redstone to make a compass, to match accordingly
• I could consider removing the new recipe for a Nature's compass that only uses a single piece of redstone, and letting it use a compass again.
  - The compass would be of medium difficulty to obtain. The Nature's compass wouldn't be easy anymore, but it also wouldn't be prohibitively expensive.