So after getting both the golden tool recipes, I made some and have started using them. I've noticed a very significant difference in how long they last, though.

For context, I have a fully expanded cart and am mining in Fluorescent Fountain, which is 1,000 ft down from the furnace.

The gold pickaxe is great, it lasts about a day's worth of mining for me - about 12-16 hours.

The gold wheel? It lasts about 2-4 hours tops. Not even half the time as the pickaxe in the best case, most generous scenario. The lower level wheels I haven't timed, but are definitely similarly dire.

This makes crafting wheels with the materials you mine extremely unsustainable unless you intentionally use much lower level (and thus slower) wheels, which... kinda sucks when you spend 500kp and expensive materials (more bars than are needed for the pickaxe, in fact!) on the nicer ones. Gold, chaosium, and lorium are all way too rare at this level (which is an issue in of itself in the case of lorium, imo, but not the one being talked about here) to consistently make enough wheels to keep up with without having to go down to mithril.

It would be nice to up the durability on wheels. It doesn't have to be to extreme levels, but having them last at least half as long as the equivalent pickaxes would be way nicer than the current situation.

Support.

My silver pickaxes last a lot longer than the wheels. It's kinda ridiculous. I haven't timed the wheels but it feels like I'm going through at least 2-3 wheels for each pickaxe.

Support, especially with how rare gold is.

I'll tentatively support this -- in general I've been going through wheels faster than pickaxes. But I also think this issue can mitigated by adjusting your gameplay. I've started only taking trips back to the furnace when my cart is full of rare ores (mithril and up), periodically checking back to drop copper, iron, and silver as they pile up. Mining in the Growling Grotto this way, I've gone through more than half a mithril pickaxe without putting ANY wear and tear on my wheel with back-and-forth trips. Once the cart is full of only mithril, lorium, and moonstone shards I head back.

Of course, this only shifts the balance if you have the time/energy to sort through your mine cart at intervals-- and, of course, if you don't want any more copper/iron/silver bars.