And yet they still have lots of features in their subclasses, work great with quick multiclass options, and can just, ya know, wield a magic weapon.
My battlemaster fighter had a few levels in Battlesmith artificers and I had sooo many things I could do even though the only spells I really ever cast were Shield and Arcane Weapon. I had my steel defender doing all kinds of fun stuff, and even though being ranged took some flavour out I was still able to be creative. It was also awesome to have such a clean base to build my roleplay on top of and by the end he was the least background-heavy character yet still had tonnes of depth and character.
The only “issue” with them is that the burden of creativity lies much more heavily on the player and it’s more difficult to rest on cheap stereotypes. I’m playing a warlock now, the plot class, and I still took it several steps further all on my own because I can. The pathfinder fighter looks interesting, for sure, but come now.