At the studio, I personally use a 9900 for color and larger black and white prints (using QTR and custom profiles), and then a 3800 with Cone K6 inks for smaller format black and white glossy/matte printing. I just bought a 1430 with the MIS EB-6 inks for printing at home use, and to test out the system for some writing I am doing. I am really really happy with the results from the little Epson 1430 and the EB-6 inks with my custom k6 profiles. It seems to handle any paper I throw at it from thick 310 gsm watercolor papers to thinner 70 gsm Japanese Kozo papers and everything in between.
Before making your purchase, do a little reading on Quad Tone Rip. Custom profiles for QTR are not the same as custom ICC profiles, and involved customizing the the amount of ink that is laid down by each channel and the overall linearization. That might be all too much right now, but there are some prebuilt profiles to get you started.
The reason I mention it is I think novices deserve to be able to make the best print possible. Some of these things like printing with quad tone rip and 4 to 6 dilutions of black ink might seem a little more advanced, but it is pretty easy to use and will allow you to make prints head and shoulders above what is possible with the Epson inks and driver.
Richard Boutwell