my thoughts to those questions
1. High quality output, especially on canvas.
I love it and canvas is something I will be doing but not more than say half will be on canvas
so far the canvas I am printing I am happy with but I am testing every canvas I can get my hands on and will end up with two ! one matte and one glossy or semi and going to hold off on coment of brands until I am done testing and they sit around for a month or so and I go through some other testing with them
but I think if I was only printing on canvas ? I would look at the epson also
but since I print on glossy & matte papers and canvas the Canon was my choice
2. Efficient use of ink. I used to have an Epson Pro 4000 and wasted a lot of ink just keeping the heads clean.
I can not say yet ? but so far its great on ink and from what else I have read I think this is one of its strong points
3. Speed.
the canon is fast ! way faster than the Epson and the HP Z series
here the canon has a huge lead !
4. Ease of use.
not sure what exactly ease is ?
if its known settings etc.. I think the Epson leads here since there are so many users with known settings etc.. the canon you have to do a bit of play but once you get it dialed in no problem !
also you want to build or get built your own profiles !
me I build my own
the Epson has some good canned ones the canon so far I am not to impressed with the canned profiles out there
if the ease of use is the driver interface etc..
well I have found it easy but I know some have not ?
so this might be a comfort of computers and how much printing on other printers you have done in your past etc....
for me its super easy but for some it might not be
as far as ease of loading paper etc.. I think its a great machine easy to load single sheets and I like the front load roll very easy
the downside is super thick media such as metal etc. the IPF8000 does not have a straight through feed which could kill the deal for some !
for me everything up front and easy to get to is great
hope this helps