I'm almost certain in one of the instances you meet her, Karuzel has a +1 perception potion, and I'm also certain (though I can't remember where) that you can earn another +1 perception potion through another quest. Yes, classes still have certain starting bonuses, but they haven't been updated in a while, so the new stats like deception are not taken into account.
The hunters quest just refuses to properly work in the quest log script, it's annoying for me too, been an issue for a year now. (to be clear, the quest log is just an attempted visual representation of the quest states, it is NOT indignant of the actual quest. Most of the time that doesn't matter at all, but for the hunters case where I just can't get it to work, keep in mind that you "are" actually progressing the quest for each of them, it just doesn't show properly on the quest log). The knighting cutscene bug will be fixed, it's a relatively simple switch, thanks for reminding me.
The game already has a variable counting the artist's favor depending on player actions, but I have not yet used it in any way. I definitely will at some point in the future. In all likeliness choosing to work for the Artist will decrease Mother's respective favor.