You're probably reading too much into it, I fear. But, the addition of Artificer would be cool.Their Alchemist subclass is pretty underwhelming though, the Battlesmith and Artillerist could result in some interesting game-play however.
The Alchemist should simply be decoupled from the Artificer core class as a separate core class from the start. I would like this much better: https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Alchemist,_Variant_(5e_Class)
The Alchemist may also be an "inventor" of sorts, but to me is closer to the Cleric, Druid and Wizard who go out and gather ingredients for their concoctions instead of a mechanical tinkerer.
It bothers me that the Alchemist was simply subsumed to the Artificer just to justify the Heal Skills on a Blacksmith etc. pp. it seems to me.
