On the opposite of that, I think they are great. These are something for players to build up to. Now, at the beginning, it's going to have the opposite effect. People with a lot of build (if they want to, I know I do) are just going to jump right on with 4 or 5 levels of a paragon path while lower level players are not able to. But for those coming up, it gives a good choice of what to spend build on; do I stay on my regular path or branch out a bit, it'll take me longer to get to that 4th column, but look at the neat stuff I could do. Also, they'll have an easier time remembering everything then the players that jump right up to the top.
That being said, Warsmith being designed for Artisan makes absolutely no bloody sense to me, at all. It is not written as a "you are a master of all the crafts, put those skills to use doing this cool thing", it is seriously written as a Fighter Blacksmith setup. I first saw it and went "awesome! Something finally to help out the completely screwed over blacksmithing profession", because it's been seriously trashed over the years, but then was sorely disappointed. The new shatter rules do help a bit, but probably not much.