New to Mirrodin: Artifact Lands

Hi, I'm new to Mirrodin and I was wondering if someone could explain
to me what benefits of packing artifact lands into a deck are.

I can only think of one, and maybe this is the only one:
To pump up creatures, spells or abilities like nim lasher (power
dependent on no. of artifacts u control).

Is this the only benefit?

What benefits are artifact lands from a mana point of view?

What benefits are artifact lands if your deck generally does not use
artifacts at all or uses spells/creatures which do not depend on the
no. of artifacts you control?

Seems to me that there are inherrent disadvantages of using artifact
lands... Stone rain gets them like usual lands... Spells that destroy
artifacts get them...  The few spells that take out nonbasic lands get
them...

And once one is in your grave, haunting echoes will get all of them...

Surely there must be some redeeming feature of artifact lands that I
must be missing that would make me pack Great Furnaces instead of
mountains?

Rob, newbie  (who thinks he is missing some very important point)