Ah, OK, I think this is the key issue here. Spell-Storing Item was in many respects the heart of the class. It gave you access to EVERY spell in the game, at the expense of it being more inconvenient and slightly weaker. For me and many others, this sort of total freedom is essential to the class, and without it any attempt to create an artificer will feel watered down.
Which is my point of artificer: an artificer can fight, can buff, can create temp items, can create permanent items, can open locks and find traps, can disable or repair constructs, can make items out of thin air, and can even heal to a limited amount. No class currently can do all that; even with a subclass.
So, what I'm getting here is that a couple people calling for an artificer class aren't actually calling for an artificer class. They're asking for the 3e class pretty much exclusively, nevermind the 2e alchemist or the 4e artificer. I suspect that's going to lead to bitter disappointment. Access to multiple spell lists is insanely powerful. The Tome warlock gets access to every
ritual spell in the game, and its insanely potent.
The 3e artificer was considered to be a top tier class, one of the most powerful, leaving the old wizard (one of the dominant forces in the game) in the dust, and the create-any-spell-on-the-fly was a large part of that. 5e has gone to great length to prevent caster domination. People are saying that Favored Soul is overpowered for simply getting 10 extra known spells in the sorcerer. Tome warlock has access to every ritual in the game, and that's insanely potent. How much more should we consider access to every spell in the game at once?
I find that to be horrifyingly broken. "I can do everything a wizard can, plus the cleric and the druid" is insanely powerful. With the way DCs and saves are calculated now, even saying that the spells "are slightly weaker" is pretty meaningless now.
An artificer class would need to be balanced against the existing classes, and if you're going to be giving them pretty much every spell in the game...? They won't be.
Sure, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect people who want WotC to design them an artificer class to have to either drop that request, or design the class themselves!
It wasn't fans of the ranger as a separate class who designed the 5e ranger, after all: WotC did.
WotC also promised that all core book classes would make it into the 5e core. They also designed the subclass system to handle any new classes that pop up, since most new classes are just variations on older ones. So, considering the goal and promise of the design team, I think that comparing the design of the Ranger and the Artificer are comparing apples to oranges.
The claim to be a bard sub-class is cleary stronger, but @
Remathilis and others have made a flavour-based case against this; and in 5e flavour is integral ("refluffing" is not part of the game).
There are plenty of reasons why a bard is inappropriate beyond flavor based cases. In fact, the list is longer than the wizard-rejection one. But that's not important. I don't see how the mechanics really shape up to a number of aspects people are trying to associate with a new artificer, but to each their own.
What would the class actually look like? That's for WotC to say, just as, knowing that fans wanted a ranger that wasn't just a fighter with Archery or TWF prof plus some nature profs, they provided a ranger that was its own thing.
Actually, this is kind of missing a lot, and just an attempt to pass the buck when the only strong idea is "able to create magic item with any spell in the game." Much of the ranger's design was made with feedback from fans about what they wanted to see in the class, and it was a major part of the default promise they made about the style of 5e.
Artificer, on the other hand, would be breaking from the design if it made its own class.