I’d like to ask everyone here: has the issue of clogged ink heads improved compared to 20 years ago?
I don't know, since my printer is essentially one from that era...it's the Epson Stylus Photo 3880 model that @fgorge also mentions. I've had some clogging issues from time to time with it, mostly when it had sat unused for a few months. As long as it gets used every week or every other week, I have barely to no clogging issues. I do make a habit out of printing a quick manual nozzle check (which takes only a few seconds, a few inches of paper and almost no ink at all) to verify all nozzles fire before starting a printing session. If there are any clogged nozzles, I run a cleaning cycle, which virtually always solves the problem.
I've had to revive the printer two or three times after some many-month hiatuses that I alluded to above. Ultimately I had to replace the capping station and especially clean out the suction pump that is used for the power cleaning cycle. Turns out that the latter was the main cause of the most recent bout of severe clogging issues: essentially, the cleaning cycle just didn't work anymore. Since I've fixed that, it's been working like new again.
I'm actually amazed at how long this printer has held out and the abuse it has stood up to. I've run non-standard media through it included gelatin-coated fine art papers, it has gone through thousands of head strike incidents due to compromised/wonky/weird media, it has literally gone through several liters of 3rd party ink, it has printed with ink that had expired by 10+ years, etc. etc. And still, it produces just fine prints.
One thing though: if you intend to use your printer also for color photos, I'd really consider getting one of the more modern types with orange + green channels as well. The color gamut of these old CMYK printers (or CCMMYKKK in the case of the 3880) is somewhat limited.
