Digital BW, The Print

¡Hi chaps!

My name is Ricardo, I am 41 y.o. and I live in Madrid, Spain.

Being a physician by profession, photography is my long lasting 
passion. I take photos since I was 14 and have been into B&W 
printing since the very beginning.

I have not fully migrated to digital, but I suppose that sooner or 
later I will get a serious D-SLR. I gess that it hasn´t already 
happened due to pity for my beloved Minox 35, Nikon FM2, Kodak 
Retina and Bessa R2. I am shooting so much with the 4MP canon Ixus 
that I fear to condemn my faithful film cameras as soon as the D-
bastard is here.

Anyway, I have no doubt that regarding printing, inkjet is the way. 
I am considering now to buy myself a mostly B&W-dedicated printer, 
but capable of a decent color print from time to time. After some 
tests onto friends Epsons I am pretty convinced that BO printing 
will be most of what I will do.

Now comes the problem. Of course I will prefer a 13' printer (A3 in 
Europe) than a letter sized (A4) one. BUT, neither 1280s, or 2200s 
fit in the space I have (58 cm/ 23 inches wide is absolut maximum). 
It is something I cannot avoid, so a not-so-wide printer is a MUST 
for me.

I have two options: (i)get a R220 and forget about big prints, or 
(ii) consider non-epson printers. Canons seem not to be so wide as 
Epsons. For example, I-6500 and I-9950 will fit in my available 
workspace. I do not know how they fare about BO printing or even if 
the driver is capable of printing in black-only mode. 

¿Some ideas?