Digital BW, The Print

I have been happily printing and giving away b/w prints using various 
methods for the last 3 years, always on matte papers using FS & FSN 
inks on a 1280, and QTR UC inks on a 4000 lately.  Seeing the 
possibility of gloss prints, I printed some images at a local CompUsa 
on the newer HP printers using their gray inks.  I am a hobbyist, and 
do not sell.

Seeing the HP prints' wow-punch got me interested in glossy prints.  
Soon I was asking myself how to go about doing that, having just 
spent a lot of money on the 4000.  I am just not keen on the bronzing 
one gets with the UC inks and RC coated papers.  I wondered how much 
of my own "wow-punch" reaction to glossy prints was purely 
conditioned on knowing that the matte prints were giving me a paltry 
~1.7 DMax, while the RC prints were in the 2.2 range.  Was I too 
influenced by numbers?

So I did an experiment.  I printed the same image (see attached 
link)  to 6.5 x 10 inches with QTR on EEM and on Pictorico Photo 
Gallery Glossy, both neutral, both very linear.  There is absolutely 
no difference in the detail rendered in these prints.  Tonal 
transitions (some subtle, some drastic) in the image are faithfully 
reproduced in both prints.  The original was a 4x5 transparency 
scanned on a 4870 scanner; it has tons of detail. The Pictorico print 
was sprayed very carefully with Printshield, so it exhibited NO 
bronzing.  

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3066583

I showed the prints to co-workers at lunch, randomly stopping them in 
coridoors, in their offices, in the smoke-hall.  These are just 
regular folk, most who appreciate art.  I sampled a total of 46 
individuals, both men and women.  They were allowed to handle the 
prints, look at them anyway they chose for as long as they wanted.  I 
asked them to pick their preference of the two.

To cut to the chase:

30 people prefered the matte print.
16 people prefered the glossy print.

So what is this desire of so many of us (myself included) for glossy 
high DMax print?  Are we conditioned purely by the numerical value of 
DMax?  Is it really worth it?  Am I trying to rationalize the 
limitation of my 4000?

Regards.

Shilesh