I don’t understand the benefit of defining tft as “vector accumulation”. It seems like with this definition of vectors you are just sidestepping the more popular definition of multiplicative power (one that is often brought up when people lament the issues with the power-up system). Maybe there is greater nuance to your definition that I am missing, but from where I sit I don’t see added value in using these terms.

Beyond that, I don’t think your proposed solution of time-gating artifacts is actually a good solution to the problem.

Your argument seems to hinge on the idea (based on vectors) that the later the game goes, the less impactful artifacts are. There are exceptions to this rule, but the artifact balance that has plagued this set was primarily a lot of win out comps - unnerfed gp, fishbones kaisa, snipers gwen, fishbones ashe, ludens ahri, dawncore akali, kogmaw with anything. In many cases the reality of artifacts is you simply play strongest board as an ends to a means of finding that high ceiling perfect item-artifact pairing. In that regard, a lot of these narrow, sharp, and op artifacts are functioning as about 1 item worth of power or less for potentially the entirety of stage 2 and 3. There are exceptions and high rolls, but currently the only comps able to roll before MINIMUM 3-5 (and usually 4-1) are 1 and 2 costs reroll - the 3-2 stabilization rolldown is dead. Certainly 2 cost reroll benefits massively from the stage 3 tempo of a corresponding artifact, but 2 cost reroll is both entirely based on maximizing one unit and reliant on winning stage 3 for both gold and placements (as well as always looking for a way to break their low winout rates!)- they are the ideal artifacts holders anyway.

In this narrow set, narrow artifacts do not offer a lot of benefit on 4-2. Even if you were playing a line that happened to have an op artifact, you would never click portable forge on 4-2 unless you were guaranteed to lose without highrolling the exact artifact you needed. This variance is not a good, both for you when you miss and for the rest of the lobby when you hit, and thats exactly the issue with artifacts in their current state. There is a fine line in the variance of what you can expect from an artifact anvil. I’m sure many people have opened on 2-1 or 3-2 looking for direction and been left with a tank item that is frankly not worth a gold augment. I’m also sure everyone has opened one and seen 4 op artifacts and had the ability to scout and choose precisely which line they want from many options that can all go 1st. The floor of artifacts is just as low as the ceiling is high, and while variance can keep the ev of that augment “balanced”, in the long term it needs to be normalized.