But what would the Thoth have looked like, had Crowley not met Harris with her very specific training and abilities (projective geometry), her talents and willingness to follow his ideas, yes to translate them congenially into visual language?
I agree, the first thing I see and react to is the "handwriting" of the artist, whether he works with oil or water colours or a computer.
The only deck I can think of where I felt the creator more strongly than the artist is the Lo Scarabeo. The concept of combining three tarot traditions and the way it is done dominates the deck - the weak, pretty, competent watercolor cartoons have no artistic power at all IMO and are far removed from any of the three traditions.
To make a deck that merges visually (and not only conceptuallY the wood cut style of the Marseilles, the theatre-inspired vaguely-medieval style of Smith with her varying lines and flat colors (as opposed to many artists whose colours vary much more than their lines - I think her treatment of lines is one of Smith's strong point) and the elegant, complicated, Art-Deco, geometrical, alchemical art of Harris - that's impossible. Or it would take a very good artist, steeped in the different traditions. So it seems they went for bland and pleasing. Which is okay because in this deck, the concept is really more important than the artistic hand.
In every other deck I know the art speaks first. Whether the golden miniatures of the Visconti, the woodcuts of the Marseille tradition, the detailed engravings of the Italian decks of the 19th, the lino of Light & Shadow and World Spirit, the water color lightness and dreamy colors of the Dreaming Way, the abstract-figurative Haindl or Petersen (where artist and creator are one), I always sense the art strongly.