fuindordm
Adventurer
... Sorcery Points, or Warlock Invocations, or Channel Divinity.
What would be the Artificer's big mechanical hook? A different list of things isn't enough. Infusion mechanics have potential, but there's not much distinguishing them from "casting a spell into an item, and then using that item to cast the spell" right now. Arguably, there shouldn't be, since that's kind of what it's always been like. But if there's one area that there's room for improvement on, it's how both 3e and 4e treated item creation, so there's certainly room to do something awesome there.
Well, the 3E class was really a jack of all trades. You take Artificer if you want to be able to do a bit of everything. So I don't think it needs a very strong hook. Like the wizard, the attraction of the class is its flexibility.
I think the most important unique mechanic this class should have is that the player can create permanent magic items without negotiating with the DM. You know that you will make a discovery each level, and that you can spend your gold and downtime to create those items. Maybe 1/level is too much, I don't know. But that's the really effective thing you get out of this class: maybe you don't get an extra attack at 5th level, but you can make sure everyone in the party has a +1 weapon, or is well stocked in healing potions, or that your trio of iron defenders will protect you from harm, or so on.