Digital BW, The Print

I have been thinking about replacing my 1290 for color and 1160 (with 
Piezography) for B&W with a 2200. Subsequently, I started thinking 
about getting a 7600 with ImagePrint, so that I could make prints 
larger than 12x18 inches, both in color and B&W.

I just spent 3-1/2 hours at a local dealer trying out the 7600. First, 
I tried to make a B&W print with ImagePrint. After working on this for 
some 2-1/2 hours, all we were able to get ImagePrint to do was to print 
a "demo" print. Okay, this wasn't the fault of ImagePrint: the staff at 
the dealer didn't seem to know how to get ImagePrint to work. They had 
trouble with the IP address and the "encryption" number for the dongle. 
Yes, the blasted thing has a DONGLE! I am not sure that I want to buy 
software using a dongle as I haven't had good experience with this in 
the past. In the end, I gave up trying to make a B&W print. What I did 
see is that ImagePrint is awfully kludgy on Mac System 9.

I then made a 12x18 inch color print on the 7600 using the Epson driver 
on Archival Matte and compared it to a 12x18 print I had made my 1290 
in Bangkok on Heavyweight Matte. There's simply no comparison: the 7600 
print looks washed out in comparison to the 1290 prints.

I had always read statements on various internet forums that the color 
gamut of the 2200/7600 were close to that of the 1280. Perhaps the 
particular photo that I printed has a lot of colors that are within the 
gamut of the 1280 but outside that of the 2200/7600: my photograph is a 
close-up of parts of a Thai temple, the colors of which are various 
gold colors. The 7600 print is much less saturated and much less yellow 
than the 1290 print.

Now this particular photograph is part of a series of pictures of Thai 
temples for an exhibition that I am preparing. The richness of the gold 
colors, as well as the harmony" of such rich, strong colors and shapes, 
is the major point of this photograph. The 7600 print is so flat and 
dull that I would never exhibit it. While, according to Epson, the 1290 
photo is supposed to "last" 25 years and the 7600 photo 100 years, it 
seems to me that the 1290 photo in 25 years is likely to look like the 
7600 photo, so I'd rather enjoy 25 good years :-)

So the questions are:

1. Am I missing something?

2. Has anyone else had this experience? Or have I just happened to 
print  a photograph that is outside the gamut of the 7600 but just 
inside the gamut of the 1290? Is this likely?

3. From this experience I find it difficult to understand why hordes of 
protographers are rushing to buy the 2200. I certainly cannot 
contemplate getting either the 2200 or the 7600 after seeing this 
print. What do you think?

--Mitch