I actually got some good information, and finally ordered the Pixma Pro 9000.
I'm not doing any black and white, and I like the way of dye colors.
The PixmaPro 9000 seems to be a rock solid, professional piece of equipment, and even though it's not a new model, it's great printer, and in a different class than the R280.
My main interests are printing on fine art paper, photo rag, and what Ilford calls "pearl", not matte, but not glossy or semi-glossy either (even in my darkroom years I never used anything that looked like a shiny surface. Tried and stopped using plastic papers for rag/baryt).
Regarding the inks: the Claria inks of the R280 are advertised to last 200 years, the inks of the Canon to last 100 years. What I heard of the really knowledgeable sales people of the printer department at B&H is, that the Claria inks aren't good, and don't even last as long as the Canon PixmaPro inks.
And the latter inks last many years in an album or behind glass, and years even exposed to light. They last longer than the C-prints of yesteryear.
So I ordered three different kinds of paper and will try out what I like. I was careful to buy only paper where I could get an ICC profile.
The printer cost 429$, and the mail-in rebate is 300$.