I tried to go with a TWFing melee arti when I was doing mine, based strictly on the fact that I had litII khopeshes to use.  At around level... 15?  I LR'd into a pure ranged int based arti.  It was just too painful, and I was constantly using xbows instead even without the feats to increase their damage.

Possibly awful?  Also, won't 8art/8brb result in an artificer PL?

Points:
- Low level the extra spell slots from being able to scroll elemental weapons/ignore insightful damage let me be a much better party healer without sacrificing my personal DPS much (which isn't possible for pewpew). Also no contest between flame turret/insightful damage (as int isn't much higher than strength at that level). With Cannith Crafted gear the build was basically unkillable (95% fortification at level 3 iirc, life shield of invulnerability armour) and whether crossbow or bastard sword mobs died in 1-2 hits. There is very little difference between a bastard sword build using a crossbow from level 3 to 6 or so (point blank shot and rapid shot mainly).

- Lightning Cone rune arms work an absolute trick. I started with Chimera's Breath at level 3 eventually upgrading it with lightning lore and am now using Arcing Sky mostly. The cone shape of these rune arms hits everything within melee range including often mobs that are behind you in my experience. Buffing this up with maximum electric enhancements (only 1/1 in crit chance/damage though) and hitting electric motes has been a very effective nuke tactic in front of a flaming turret. I've used Pea Shooter/The Turmoil Within for backup as appropriate.

- Very buff/gear intensive. In the end I'm still a d6 HD, no evasion, bad saves build but by stacking available buffs (displacement scrolls, stoneskin scrolls, protection from elements, resist energy, +4 stat buffs from wands, haste pots, blur wand, protection from evil wand etc) and TR'ing with a decent amount of reasonably easily acquired raid gear (MinII belt - not ideal for this life but for next mainly, Minos, Levik's Bracers, Dance guard Fleshmakers Brigadine, PLIS, VPIS, Boots of the Innocent, Spectral Gloves, +6 int goggles/+6 con necklace, 2*Planar Girds and a good selection of bastard swords (Cannith crafted + Paralyzing icy bursted of pure good, vorpal icy bursted of pure good) I've had a good time of it. I'm sitting at close to 400 HP fully buffed at level 14 (though usually swap out Minos for Big Top for 100% heal scrolls with skill boost).

- Is the gear required? Not sure. I'm gauging myself against other TR'd characters like Blank_Zero's Warchanter Bard swinging a LitII Falchion and otherwise very well geared and very well played, the bar is set pretty high. I pugged a lot in the lower levels more for an audience and an elite opener than anything, I had quite a lot of good feedback but that would be gear/quest knowledge/aggressive play style as much as anything.

- Melee damage is lacking a little at level 14 but I'm getting GTHF at level 15 so am looking forward to more glancing blows which should help. I'm very much in a caster roll kiting large mobs (and not dying due to HP and other defenses) putting down a flame turret, charging rune arm, lightning motes and blasting the trash; usually only 1-2 mobs left after that to clean up with the sword. I did this to clean up all the trash in the final walk up elite DQ1 towards the first encounter with lailat. I was honestly a little worried if I could handle it but by the time my teammates caught up all the trash was basically dead.

- Even though I use a bastard sword crossbows are still an important part of the Artificer class. Beholders, some bosses, far away enemies all get the crossbow/endless fusillade treatment. AB isn't horrible with +6 dexterity bracers (tharnes), MGA crossbows slotted with +3 accuracy, GH, ship buffs etc but it's always a bit questionable whether to go with insightful damage or insightful strikes. Against elite DQ I went with insightful strikes and ended up with aggro despite a sharing the DPS job with the ranger (+4 holy MGA of evil outsider bane crossbow that i crafted just for the occasion did the trick). I no longer have any generalist crossbows; greater aberration bane loot gen, true chaos of construct bane MGA crafted and the above bow are all that I have. I'll farm the Doublecross xbow (which has int for attack so will be the highest DPS bow available to me most of the time with insightful damage on it) and silverflame crossbow (as I can't be bothered crafting a triple positive xbow).

- Rune arms and kiting don't mix. You lose movement speed when you're charging your rune arm and if there is a lot of trash you'll often lose shots to over crowding unless you swap to a short range rune arm (which doesn't function very well with ranged). If you want to maximise rune arm DPS you need to stand stock still and take whatever is coming at you but in that case why use a crossbow at all as you're losing most of the benefits, might as well build a sturdier toon capable of taking the hits (part of the theme).

Nothing else comes to mind, fair bit of work keeping track of buffs but overall the concept is working fine for me as a leveling build, I'm not sure if it will work at cap but I'm hoping that an Epic Chimera's Fang will help (and let me fit in greater spell focus: evocation for sick rune arm DPS).

Warforged is likely a better choice for the build premise but I wanted the cannith dragonmarks for crafting bonuses. There is a warforged version posted in the thread but it suffers from a very difficult choice: splash or having to choose between power attack and insightful reflexes. I'm a firm believer in staying pure to maximise rune arm and capstone DPS (you lose AB and damage if you splash so quickly end up doing less DPS even though you have the +5 damage from power attack without even factoring in lost levels on rune arm).

Worst thing about this build is limited inventory slots. I have about 10 inventory slots of loot at the moment and that is after getting rid of buff wands that I'd have preferred to keep and putting my Minos and some situational raid gear in the bank. I've hit that "Buy Now!" tab in my inventory more than once and thought about the 595 TP to get an extra page, damn turbine. If they had a sale I'd probably get it out of frustration.

Unfortuantely, I agree 100%.  There is obvious synergy there with glancing blows, but the synergy isn't enough to make up for the fact that it just blows fucking chunks as a build in general.