Digital BW, The Print

Lack of a status monitor is no reason to not use a 3000. I rarely use the Epson driver and get along fine without monitoring. 
The lights on the printer will blink when ink gets low, and you will be able to print until the light comes on solid. At this point 
it will stop printing and you will be able to change the cartridge and continue printing even mid print.
Reports of problematic 3000's are overblown in my opinion. When Piezo first came out the 3000 was the only printer 
supported and most of us were not yet aware that we could not use the thickest papers or aware of the necessity of 
perfect alignment. So there was a lot of posting and complaining, things have moved on but this stuff becomes part of the 
percieved knowledge base. Since then we hear of a variety of models with occassional problems, some people go through 
a number of 1160's, and the 1200 is notoriously bad.
The 3000 is still sold by Epson, the longest running model, refurb prices are as high as ever, higher than what I paid over 3 
years ago. It is, in many ways, the ideal traditional quad printer. Four inks, great density, and larger print sizes then the 
desktop models. It's a workhorse. You'll pay a much higher price for the ability to use thicker paper at these sizes.
Of course, you still have a chance of getting a clunker or two, then you'll wish no monitor was the worst of your problems.
Tyler