Artifacts were nerfed. Not just left in the dust by more powerful equipment. 3 prominent ones that changed were Bloody horntips of minotaurus, deep blue eyes (although they still are decent), and the supple hooded longcoat. I'm sure others changed but can't think of them offhand. Considering the rarity they are to load their stats should be better. Although they shouldn't be epic. They should be on par with hard quests, because of the time it takes to get one.
I also think that we should just start calling what we call artifacts, rare-loads. Because that is what they are. Since they are part of zones, and have a history, keep them, just don't make them part of the new artifact system. The new artifact system should be epic items. As good and on the same par as the *Excalibur* sword which is a quest reward that only one player can use at a time.
I played somewhere once that the artifact system worked like this. It had something similiar to the detector we have now that would prompt the location of all artis in game, whether a player owned it currently or it was somewhere else. These artis stayed with their master, the one who got it, and would only stay with them if they would be made happy. You made the artifacts happy by of course killing with them. Whether it be pk or mk. You could also only ever have one arti on at a time because they would get jealous of each other. Unless the one liked you enough to let it slide. This persisted even through loggin off, but if you logged off too long the artifact wasn't happy and would leave you and go back into the world for someone else to find it and take care of it. And they of course hated it if you'd die by any means. This idea I think would work well here. Details of course would need ironed out, but overall could work for the new artifacts we want. it should be brand new items, epic items with unrivaled stats, non perzable, and unique. Some artifacts may be better for casters levelling, melee levelling, melee pk, caster pk, perhaps some with varying degrees of those, or hybrids, perhaps some with unique innates like brace or mana shield. Maybe even make it so they work similiar to the Orcrist, and can gain levels with their master, so you always want to try and get your primary artifact back to get more levels on it to make it better. they could start out good stats, and gradually increase the more active you are with it. This idea promotes activity in the game even more. There is a lot of ideas I mentioned, of course not all will be liked, so discuss away, and let me know what you think?
