The badge is certainly not for only the “absolute elite of game developers”. Many organisations on Twitch have just a single user who is the game developer, as there are lots of games on Twitch that are made by a single person. Even web based games are eligible. And it may seem tedious but that’s because Twitch have to verify you are who you say you are and have a legitimate claim to an org/game as it’s not just a badge that is provided by access to Drops, and Game Analytics, which is very much private data and so should be limited to verified owners of the game.
Also there is no restriction on an organisation limiting themselves to just coders, everyone that’s part of an organisation in any capacity, be it a coder, musician, artist, community management, whatever. they can all be part of the org on Twitch and able to get the Game Developer badge.
As for badges for those who are not part of an organisation, how could Twitch possibly verify that a Twitch user is a Game Developer if they are not part of an organisation that has been verified as the legitimate owner of a game on Twitch? The badges also link to the organisations website, so to some degree the people using Game Developer badges represent the company, which is why it’s important that the company themselves get to choose who is part of their organisation and can use that badge.
In the case of the Artist badge, that’s a channel-specific badge for broadcasters to attribute the artists who have made channel emotes. https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/artist-badge-attribution