I believe MC is doing what they designed it to do in this case. You have to look very closely at the sequence of events to understand what's going on.
You are changing the column layout inside of "ALL ARTISTS". This is part of the SubTree of Artists. It is (apparently) not the same view as the top level Artists view. Try going back to All Artists again. Your changes should be there.
Try making those same changes at the TOP LEVEL of Artists instead. Your changes should stick there as well.
I think this behavior is rather confusing. I also find the view you are using (details in Artists) to be kind of confusing, as that's not how I browse my music. It's unclear to me exactly how you would drill down to what you wanted. If it works well for you, other than the column layout, then of course please keep using it. But if you are having trouble with your navigation of these views, then it's worth exploring another view layout that might work better for you.
The key point for THIS post though is that you are changing something in one place and not another. (Top level versus tree item).
Brian.