My friend got an artifact as recently as the beginning of the last week of December and she didn't have a guide.

It was hotfixed, but I didn't notice exactly when. You used to be able to roll need on them, too, but now they're greed only.

On a related note, I seem to remember that Boubouille datamined an achievement on the 4.3 PTR that indicated there would be DMF artifacts coming from archaeology, too. Was that a thing, or am I misremembering? If it was real, was there any official comment on why it wasn't implemented?

It's too bad that didn't go live. That would have been a nice addition to the profession, I think.

The treatise is apparently different - it just dropped off of Obsidius in BRC and I couldn't roll on it

Actually, Fox in the article is right. If I'm the only person in a dungeon with the Darkmoon Guide, then I'm the only one who sees the quests drop and I'm the only one who can roll on them. It's fabulous at low levels, since almost no one has a guide on all of their alts which means less people to roll against :D

I can definitely confirm this as recently as today.

As of last week only people with the guide have been able to roll on the items in dungeon groups I've been in.

Must have been hotfixed, then.

Well, then it must be working differently for different people, then, because I've been able to roll on artifacts regardless of whether the character I'm playing has an Adventurer's Guide.

My alt mage doesn't have the guide and I've been rolling on drops, including the Treatise, in heroics. Won a few also. My lock has the guide and haven't seen anything drop at all, go figure RNG...