Digital BW, The Print

Okay, so I naively thought that it would be easy to find the right 
printer for making B&W prints.  After reading on this subject for 
several hours I have a pounding headache. Although I now realize that 
this is a complicated subject, I'm going to just post this question 
and see if anyone steps up with a recommendation as to which printer 
I should buy! 

Here are my parameters: All images will be from an Olympus 5050, so 
max resolution is 2560x1920. I will not be printing anything larger 
than A4/8.5x11.  I plan on using MIS's quadtone or hextone inks (so 
I'm looking at Epson's), and I won't consider any printer unless 
importable color curves/work flows are available. 

At present I'm leaning toward the Epson 1280... but it is a little 
more printer than I need (larger paper size capacity than I will ever 
use, and I couldn't care less about borderless printing) and it's a 
bit pricey for the occasional use my printer will see. 

Can someone please- PLEASE- demystefy B&W printer options for 
me????????