Just to chime in here... I've had an Epson 7900 since December 2008 and I do low volume printing. Overall I doubt I print more than the OP, Anthony, but the machine activity has varied between printing numerous prints every day, remaining completely idle (powered off) for up to 3.5 weeks, and making a print or two per week. Like many I experienced annoying random clogs until the November 2009 firmware update. Honestly, I considered them more of a nuisance than a show stopper, and I did not go through loads of ink clearing them. But, since the November 2009 firmware update I've had exactly 2 clogs. The first involved a single cyan nozzle and the other involved several cyan nozzles. I used the maintenance mode CL1 cleaning and used just a few ml of ink total for cleaning in the last 5 months. The bottom line is that I'm very happy with the purchase.
There are other threads here discussing all of this at length, but without getting into all of that, I think Epson's biggest mistake was raising user expectations beyond reality with advertising hype before and during the release of the machines. the advertising led users to think they'd never see a clog, which is just impossible. Added to that was the issue many seemed to have, which appeared to be a lack of ink at the nozzles rather than real clogs, though no one seems to know for sure. That, at least for me, seems to be fixed by the last firmware update. The last clogging problem I had appeared to be "real clogs" since it took two CL1 cycles to clear them. The "fake clogs" always clear immediately with a single CL1.
Every printer manufacturer has their own problems and there's no free lunch. Epson has permanent heads and can be set up and used so that no ink is consumed for cleaning unless there's a nozzle that's not spraying ink. Canon uses some ink periodically to keep heads open, and if a nozzle clogs it's mapped out and a spare used, as Wayne mentioned. You'll never see a clog, but one day you'll get a message telling you that you need to replace the a print head. As I recall there are two at about $600 each, but I'm not sure about those numbers. I don't know which method is cheaper over time, but $1200 in ink would clean a huge number of clogs on the Epson. HP printers seem to be the best where clogging is concerned. They have user replaceable heads (one per each 2 colors if I recall correctly), they clog very infrequently, and replacement heads are relatively cheap. It's just my personal opinion, but if clogging was the biggest factor in a purchasing decision, I'd go with HP.
I'm fairly sure every manufacture turns out a "lemon" once in a while, that no amount of fixing, cleaning, or fussing seems to cure. All you can do to avoid that is cross your fingers. YMMV
