Digital BW, The Print

David,

>The difference is that hundreds of years of experience means
> that the sizing is a known quantity,

That's absolutely false. The art papers made today by Arches, Fabriano, Canson, etc. aren't the same as the papers made in the past, even a decade or so ago.

Any alternative process printer is aware of this and more than one paper has changed their formulation without notice causing many alt. printers a lot of grief. The internal sizing formulation isn't constant nor is the surface coating. Granted that alt printers are subjecting the paper to water and chemicals unknown to the manufacturer but the fact is the papers consistency is a moving target over a period of time.

So there isn't any guarantee that art papers have greater longevity than manufactured inkjet papers, especially when they (art papers) are coated by the end user. 

If you want to have more technical and aesthetic control of your inkjet generated prints I think you would be better served to use a RIP and possibly custom formulate your ink, regardless of the paper(s) you may use or the coatings you apply to your selected papers.

Regards,

Don Bryant