I think Once is on the best track I've seen here.
It may just be my not being a good player, having not heard anything that has pointed me towards where artifacts are located, or some combination of both. But I've spent considerable time in some of the zones mentioned earlier in this thread and not found anything I recognized as an artifact. I was once given one, and was able to use it briefly, until the bug report that it could be used by someone that hadn't earned it was acted upon. Then I promptly found myself dead the next time I brought it into play, heck of a reward for being a guinea pig.
It would be my guess that some of the mobs that drop these artifacts have been beat down to near death and then handed over to a buddy to finish off. Heck, I helped someone kill Greenie so they could wear the dragon legs, way back. Admittedly not as efficiently and with the finesse of the big boys would.
In the past I've been told of certain players having stockpiles of items that have been removed from the game, not artifacts, but determined to be overpowered and removed or changed. If this was or is the case, then I'm sure that some players would try to limit the supply by insuring a max load situation. Especially in a PK situation, I'd only want my allies to have the power pieces.
While I'd like to have the
"badaxe of 15d15's" and "amor of you can't touch this"
and would not want them to disappear, especially in the middle of a battle, with no warning.
Don't these artifacts as is, contribute to the imbalance and "perfect set of equipment" complained of in another thread? And not having timers on them would just continue this. I didn't see any complaints of timers when a few knew that as long as they wore, held or wielded the item it didn't crumble or dissolve.
I have a problem with a one time announcement that an artifact unless it was a note to all, and had a date, time stamp. Otherwise people not online at the moment of the announcement would not know, and if they read the announcement several days later there probably would be little sense in hunting it. If they are like me they wouldn't know where to start hunting anyway.
After a pwipe, unless the artifacts are moved around, wouldn't the same players would have them again? So why bother.
Once's idea makes the most sense to me. That's a bit hard to say.
Okay, that's my opinion, now shoot it apart.