Digital BW, The Print

Just got a call from a Margaret at Epson regarding my phoned-in question
yesterday about the Gray Balancer issue. While she was very pleasant (and
there is something refreshing about a major company actually bothering to
call back and take 15 minutes to discuss a complaint), that's about as far
as the lovefest went.

Paraphrasing the highlights of what I was told:
--Each Epson regional division makes its own decision as to what added
features (i.e., gray balancer, CD printing) it wants to offer. Epson N.
America simply chose not to offer...well, anything ;-). There was a vague
something about "not wanting to limit our paper choices" (?!), but overall
the question was politely dodged.
--Epson N.A. has no plans to release the GB software as a separate add-on
for those who want to try it. We might be able to unofficially get it from
overseas, but they can't promise it will work with the 2200 as "the drivers
are different." 
--They are aware of the importance of quality B&W output to pros and
continuing to work on improving it further. They also know metamerism is a
big issue among us. She threw out some stat about "delta E" being reduced
from I believe 8-something in the 2000 to 2-something in the new printers.
Perhaps the brainier list members can explain what, if anything, this means.

Overall impression: nice person relaying an official corporate snow job.
Just thought I'd pass it on.

Doug