The table on p.190 indicates that an Expert quality weapon costs 350sp. But does this get added to the original weapon cost, or does it replace that cost.
I'm guessing that the answer is it replaces the base cost, so an Expert Dagger and an Expert Longsword cost 350sp each, not 302sp and 310sp respectively. But it seemed a bit odd that an Expert Composite Longbow also costs 350, whereas a standard Composite Longbow costs 200sp all on its own - plus looking at various Expert gear, the prices range quite a bit. So I'm recommending this be clarified in the final version of the rulebook.
(All examples I could find in the playtest rulebook are comparing the difference between Expert and better-than-Expert qualities, not standard vs Expert.)
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Also on page 190:
Improving Quality
You can use the Craft downtime activity (see page 148)
to improve the quality of an item up to your proficiency
rank in the Crafting skill. For this purpose, the Price
equals the difference in Price between the two qualities.
Upgrading an expert-quality chain shirt to master quality,
for example, uses a Price of 3,250 sp. This requires you
to have master Crafting and to provide 1,625 sp worth of
raw materials to start the process.
Nonmagical items might decrease in quality over a long
period of neglect or after extended use, but they can be
restored in the same way as improving an item.
That indicates that you are correct in how it works at present. I think we may get an errata at a later date that makes it additive (which makes more sense to me) instead.