Tim,
High end printers offer several things that virtually demands the expense. Gradations of tonality, size and fastness of the droplets used to create the image, volume of output and the resources to maintain that volume, paper quality and choices, and size of print.
Look for these books;
Digital Effects by Jim Zuckerman Advanced Digital Photography by Tom Ang Epson's Complete Guide to Digital Printing Rick Sammon's Complete Guide to Digital Photography
All provide excellent and resources about today's digital printing domain.
Also check into these sites;
http://www.digi-darkroom.com/ http://luminous-landscape.com/
Desktop publishing has long been the norm, and printers are almost central to a successful digital graphics or photography business.
But this is just my humble opinion.
Take care, Gregory david Stempel FIREFRAMEi m a g i n g www.americanphotojournalist.com
