Digital BW, The Print

For me the biggest drawback to digital photography has been 
unreliability.  My C86 just died.  I've had it, what, a couple of 
months?  During that time I made maybe two or three prints that I'm 
happy with.  I was using the MIS EZ system, and I had problems with 
nozzle clogs and ink blobs on the prints, as well as leaky cartridges.  
Given the time and money I spent, this experience wasn't a good one. 
Even when it did work properly, the C86 did a poor job on scan from 
medium format and large format negatives, because of the texture in the 
highlights. Moreover, spraying prints is unacceptable.  I don't have an 
indoor spray booth, nor am I likely to get one soon, and it's too cold 
to spray outside at the moment.  In any case I found that spraying left 
a nasty texture on the prints. 

On the plus side, I did scan and print a large number of my parents's 
slides from the 50's and 60's on a different C86 with MIS PRO inks.  
These turned out very well.  Since many of the slides had faded 
considerably, or had other problems, printing them optically would have 
been much harder, and I probably wouldn't have gotten results as good as 
from digital printing.

So now that my monochrome inkjet is down, I'm stuck with a fair amount 
of ink that I can't use, and apparently I need a new printer.  Given my 
problems with the c86, I'm very hesitent to try the R220.  It's not the 
cost of the printer so much, but the cost of my time that bothers me, 
and the cost of the consumables is not inconsequential.  I like the idea 
of the r2400, but I'm concerned about the cost of consumables. Using MIS 
inks is a possibility, but I have serious concerns about their quality 
control. Maybe I should go back to the darkroom and check in on digital 
in another couple of years.