I agree with Grey. It seems to me that the system in place is good. We have random items that are better than average with the prefix/suffex system. And artifacts are just so cool when they are well made. Like Laukku said above, the Silver Key, the Si and others are interesting artifacts. I like to think about Kinslayer having been used by a madman to murder his family and the blade was forever cursed with a thirst for human blood. Or the Black Tome. It's a magic book that can teach you any spell. Seems to me that this suggestion about artifacts is just adding more of the prefixes to weapons, so they can have 2 or 3 at once. The chance to throw everything way out of balance seems unlikely (wicked/nasty/murderous -foo- of devastation/mayhem/slaughtering), and the effort of making an engine that can't make imbalanced items would be better spent making more artifacts.

Now as far as player ghosts? I like that idea. Have a 1% chance when a Ghost (lord/king) is made to pick a name from the high score list and give him +(player level on death)PV or somthing.