No, you would have to reapply the deco on to the new material, I believe so.
Looks like the console replace method works. However, that is not area specific. Only element specific. Which means you could copy/save the work in pieces and replace the element/areas required through the console and re-assemble.
Try using !set type <your element> <element to be replaced with> for eg if you want to replace gold with say qrtz without loosing the deco type !set type gold qrtz in console.
Repeat the process with different elements.