Digital BW, The Print

Hi,

I recently bought a sample pack of Ilford Galerie inkjet paper 
because one paper I wanted to try is Smooth Pearl Paper.

So I made two prints with Epson Enhanced Matt paper (Piezo driver, 
MIS-FSN, EAM ICQ setting) and the same two prints on Ilford Smooth 
Pearl paper (Piezo driver, MIS-FSN, Epson Premium Luster ICQ 
setting). Much to my suprise, the prints from the two papers were 
almost identical.

I handed the prints to three differents people and asked them to pick 
the prints they liked most. All of them picked the Ilford paper for 
about the same reason: it looks and feels like photographic paper 
while the Epson EEM looked matt. One person even said that prints 
made on EEM looked more like photocopies. Ouch!

Next I asked them to do the same, but at a distance of three feet 
without touching the prints. Much to my surprise, none could see any 
difference between the two papers.

While this Ilford paper looks more like photographic paper it has two 
important strikes against it: there is apparent bronzing under 
fluorescent lighting and much less so under incadescent lighting even 
though none of the three people saw it. And it did not pass the wet 
thumb rub test. 

So I'm still looking to find a reasonable cost alternative to EEM. 
Any suggestions?

Cheers,
Andre