Digital BW, The Print

I am strictly an amatuer, but I print about everyday, and have been 
trying a lot of the things out there for BW printing. I must have 
calibrated my screen 20 times, and read every article I could find. One 
of the main things i learned so far, is that My systems must be weird. 
Every single icc profile, or adjustment curve, or driver setting needs 
to be pretty significantly adjusted. I have never been able to get a 
icc profile to work. They were never better than stock, so i gave up on 
those. Pauls curves were actually pretty close, but I still needed to 
adjust contrast/lightness etc at least a little bit. Same with using 
the sliders. Every paper needs to be adjusted a little diferently than 
described. It takes a few prints to figure out a new paper. It seems 
that no matter what, i need to lighten the print by about 5-7, (but not 
always!) and sometimes also add a contrast boost of +2. Thats after i 
have tried a few media settings to find out which is the closest to 
good! My color printer is a 1200, and it is even more whacked. I always 
have to bring down the cyan by a LOT, boost the magenta, decrease the 
density, and slightly boost the saturation. The settings that are 
described by others for a certain paper/ink combo are never ever right. 
Once dialed in by trial and error, they print consistently well 
however. SO...... I just sort of use trial and error to get it done 
pretty quick now. Keep in mind that a tiny adjustment can make a big 
diference when you start getting real picky about the 
result........printers a are real finicky, and I guess they vary a lot 
as they come off the line.......Just my limited insight...DM