And after all that, all a player needs to do is look at the Cost Reduction Handbook to send WBL far over the edge. Of course, it's very rare that any reasonable DM would allow this sort of thing, but the potential is there, like it is for any sufficiently rules aligned player.

The point is, if someone wants to play an artificer, it should be a lot like someone wanting to play an evil character or... I don't know, a red wizard. The point is, yes, it can work, but it's so easy to send things past their limit that it becomes very easy to disrupt the game. this is the territory where DMs shuld have a chat with their player in order to keep them from going that far