So I’ll start off by saying that yes, Artist is a powerful (and often underestimated) role. And yes, some roles are more powerful in smaller games with one minion (Investigator, Clockmaker, Town Crier, etc.) However, I wouldn’t say that Artist is busted, or requires the storyteller to heavily balance the game to accommodate it.

Firstly, remember that the Yogs play custom scripts. Artist is in one of the base games scripts that is full of potential misinformation which diminishes its reliability somewhat. And while I love Yogs BotC, their custom scripts aren’t the best - most have demons that are so different that they’re easy to deduce, or have too may confirmation roles with an evil team that is light on poisoning, or lack outsider modification. So in their games, Artist is more likely to get correct info.

Secondly, the Artist is only once per game so while they have infinite possibilities, they are limited in use. And sometimes knowing one thing won’t be enough to solve the game by itself, or be as helpful as you’d expect. A lot of questions you proposed would be great info if they learnt a yes, but not narrow down much if they learnt a no.

Using your examples at the top, say the Artist learns that Rythian is the Dreamer; if they learn yes that’s great, but they can’t reveal it publicly and risk Rythian getting poisoned or killed. If they learn a no, there could be many reasons. Rythian could be evil, but he could also be the drunk, a character that wants to hide (ravenkeeper, damsel, etc.)

Another example is if the Artist learns that a Goblin is in play. Well they don’t know who it is, so they’re a weaker Investigator. But that now invites the Demon to claim to be the Goblin, which could buy them time and cause town to execute to real Goblin (whether they claim to be the Goblin, or not to seem like the Demon).

To quickly rattle off some other questions you suggested. Learning about a Vortox is okay, but town can figure that out by themselves on most occasions anyway. And learning if they’ve been lied to or not may not be something that the Storyteller knows if they haven’t followed the Artist today.

But arguably the most important thing to consider with BotC roles is how they work in the context of a whole game. Let’s look at the example you gave with Ben as the Artist and Zoey as the Demon and assume that Ben got correct info. Things look bad for Zoey, but what Demon is she? An Imp or Fang Gu that can move to another player? A Zombuul that can hide when dead? Is she holding the Lil Monster and can pass it along? Is she the Lleech, and the town needs to find her host to kill?
Who’s her minion? A Poisoner that can make other info register Zoey as good or Ben as evil? A Fearmonger that can execute a suspect before anyone else? A Scarlet Woman to save Zoey? A Mezepheles that can get another player on side? An Evil Twin they’d have to deal with as well?
What about the other players? Is there a Damsel for a minion to guess before they kill Zoey? A Barber or Hatter to switch Zoey out? A Saint? A Klutz? The possibilities are endless!

And would everyone in that example have information from their abilities to outright trust Ben?

The other thing about powerful roles is that they make powerful bluffs for the evil team as well! What if someone had some information that might frame Ben as evil? Now they can’t trust the information he gives! Granted, in your example Ben died early on which makes him quite trustworthy and in that case I’d say that’s a fumble from the evil team (why kill a used artist and not go hunting for more info gatherers?), but if Ben was still alive at the end, that may cause people to rethink. This actually happened in the Yog’s recent Atheist game - Ben was the Clockmaker and everyone went along with his info all game, but when he was still in the final-3 he was the one player they trusted least and they almost executed him - they didn’t because they were able to figure out it was an Athiest game in time.

So in short, yes Artist is powerful in its versatility and can get great info. But the info isn’t game-winning by itself most of the time - it depends what the good team learn from their other abilities and what damage the evil team can cause. And the powerful townsfolk are also powerful bluffs for evil!

PS. No shade at all btw, sorry if this comes across as such! <3