I'd say Ibis > Blossoming Death for a DT, no matter pvp or pve. It's not that hard to get one these days, especially comparing with mats amount needed for T3 crafted shield mentioned above
If one can easy get T4 DT sword then sure, it's right way to go and Ibis can be easily transformed into protection sword after.
Imo AoK shield is best free drop til T4, so it's definetely worth to grind for it.
As for protection fights yeah ,T3 crafted is great, but it takes some effort to get that one
T3 protection shield from Gyas on other hand is relatively easy to get and it isn't bad at all although has no crit rating.
Protection tali from Wyrm is great but might be not that easy to get for fresh DT.