Yeah the shipping dates are always subject to change, and then there is the actual date at which real quantity starts to move. Epson has been quite good lately in meeting demand, it remains to be seen if the 7900 will continue that trend, but too early to speculate.
That said in response to the original question, this looks to be a very nice printer. Looks like a tank. The larger in tanks should help to bring down the cost per print, and the automatic black ink switching is a BIG step forward. The speed is improved, over the 9880 but not by a huge amount. The cutter is fantastic, actually this may seem little but is fairly important as it will now cut virtually anything. This includes canvas and fine art papers! It also does so in one pass and is unbelievably quick. The look of the prints is very good, this is still being explored, certainly there are difference in gamut between this and the X880 series but how much of a difference, well we'll see. Oh the automatic print feeder is very cool, and the spindle-less roll paper holder is great. In all there is a lot to like. It does come at a cost premium, and the additional 2.5K for the spectro on the 44" printer is a bit steep. That said there is a reason why the 9880 is staying in the lineup, Epson now has two distinct lines of printers for people to choose from, more if you count the larger than 44" inch printers they just released. This is a revolutionary model for them rather than evolutionary. As far as it's quirks, it does have some, however it's not really fair to judge a pre-production printer, and it takes month for all the quirks of a product to really emerge, so we'll see. That said the first impressions are quite good.
