Digital BW, The Print

I plunged into digital B&W printing about two months ago and have since 
discovered that something I thought was simple and straight forward is 
extremely complex.  I haven't been very successful in finding a good 
source of information were I can learn how the various phenomena are 
manifested (colour casts, metamerism, shifts, bronzing, etc.) or what 
controls them.  I find the tens of different options (quadtones, 
hextones, septtones, RIPs, printer drivers, separate drivers, profiling 
equipment, whatnot) very confusing and I don't know how to choose 
between them... or to determine what is right for me and the budget 
that I willing to devote to this.

Is there such a source?  Online or in a book?  I can't access the Files 
section of the Yahoo! groups page, because it refuses to acknowledge 
that I subscribe to this group -- despite having gone through the whole 
"verification of membership" process twice.

M.