Digital BW, The Print

Howdy all - I just got introduced to this group.

I'm currently studying photography at TAFE (tertiary education), and 
at the moment we're concentrating entirely on B&W (so this group 
should be quite useful!).

Now, the printer I currently own is a Canon i70 (I use a DSLR), but 
I want to upgrade.

I also want the printer to be good at colour, as well as printing 
good, neutral B&W.  Because of that I'm not willing to go and 
dedicate a printer entirely to B&W, so I need something that can do 
both (besides, I'd have to import the inks from the US - bit of a 
nuisance, and I need a new printer ASAP).

I've been looking around at various Canon, Epson and HP 
printers...my budget?  Well, to make it easier (due to differing 
currencies), the Pixma iP5000 is comfortably within my budget.  I 
could be convinced to spend the equivalent of the iP8500.  I don't 
really want to spend the money on the i9950 (I believe it's the 
i9900 in the US), but I could manage it if I had to...

Any recommendations?

I've had the HP 8450 recommended to me.  The Epson 2100 looked 
decent (I've had the 2200 recommended to me, but I don't think that 
model is available in Australia), but I have no idea how much that 
costs, and it's been discontinued anyway