I've had experiences with some Epson profiles causing darker areas that have substantial detail on the monitor to become featureless black on paper. As the guy above said, it's the Epson profiles that do it - I guess they're trying to optimize the midtones at the expense of the shadows. If you're getting prints that look OK in the highlights and midtones, just too dark in the darker regions, that's probably the problem, and (as he said) can be solved by getting custom profiles for about $50 per paper type. If your prints are too dark *everywhere*, then it's something else. Your settings sound OK to me.
Lisa