Digital BW, The Print

Ink sets such as UT7 use three.  FSN has 4 (if I recall correctly).  Epson K3 has three.  Not so 
long ago there was chatter from UT7 users and, I believe, from Paul that three Ks were not 
necessary on the small picolitre printers.  I used an ink setup similar to Carl Schofield which 
ran just 2 shades of K for a particular paper (plus sepia toner for sepia prints).  Now I hear 
chatter of Piezotones (?) coming out with 8 shades of grey... The dedicated B&W ink 
manufacturers had a great niche when Epson only had 1 or 2 Ks.  The way was left open for 
people to remix/dilute ink to provide B&W printers with better tonal gradation (less dots) with 
quad/hex/sep setups.   I am interested in hearing from specialist B&W printers who still think 
that we need more than three shades of K and why.  

(I say specialist because ideally I would like to hear from people who make a living printing 
B&W for established photographers and those people who work with ink companies and help 
them design/market/produce their B&W ink sets.  So bureaus/labs, Paul Roark, Jon Cone 
types...)