I guess nobody else has connection issues with their HP printer and Snow Leopard.
The new drivers proved to only be a illusory fix for me. As I mentioned last night, after installing the update, it finally made a normal connection over my ethernet network without invoking a Bonjour connection, and it was quite snappy. Unfortunately, it only worked one time, then failed to connect after that. Both printer and print utility stopped working with HP JetDirect, LPD or IPP protocols.
I reinstalled the drivers, setup my printer again, made another swift connection and then did a precautionary permissions repair. Naturally, it stopped working immediately thereafter and would not connect with anything but Bonjour. I"m back to my pokey status quo from before the new driver upgrade, so no fix for anything, as far as I'm concerned. The printer utility takes about a minute to find my printer and files take an extra several minutes to load to the printer, even for small files.
HP and printer drivers, like gasoline and fire, a great combination.