If that fluctuation of smoother and coarser patterns between printers is the result of the heads only then the Canons and HPs have the "advantage" that it can be achieved with an exchange of just the heads. I am still very content with the HP Z3200 and Z3100. The droplet sizes they squirt are fixed at 4 and 6 picoliter which is rougher than the fixed 4 picoliter droplets of the Canons and the minimum 3.5 droplet of the Epsons, talking wide formats here. The Epsons however will use larger droplets in the lower resolution settings next to the minimum droplet. Many use the highest print resolution settings of the Epsons for reasons that can be found in other Epson threads here. Droplet sizes are one thing; print resolutions, dithering, weaving strokes, 8 and 16 bit drivers are important too. The same heads as used in the Z3100 and Z3200 are used in the B9180 A3 printer but that one has better dithering algorithms so the A3 print shows finer detail and smoother gradations. The longer computation times for the A3 size plus the lower printing speed are acceptable for that printer type, translating that to the larger models would not be acceptable.
When the Canon iPF5000 and a bit later the larger Canon models were introduced in 2006 and the HP Z3100 at the end of that year too, it was clear that the Canons had a somewhat rougher dot pattern than the Z3100 and both were coarser than the Epson models of that period when the last were set at the highest print resolution. But the newcomers were much faster, especially the Canons. On several matte papers and on canvas that difference in image quality was minimised, the more if the usual lower resolutions were used for those jobs. The image quality difference on the best papers may still be apparent in the latest versions of the different brand models but that image quality gain in the Epsons goes together with the use of the highest resolution setting and even then the user has to pay more attention to flaws in the output, more than with the other brands. In a production environment I would go for a Canon iPF8300 and wait for the iPF9300 that most likely will appear at the 2012 Photokina. I can cope my print volume with the Zs though and that without headaches.
I do use Qimage Ultimate like I have done over almost a decade with other printers so I can not comment whether that makes a difference on smoothness, I think it is mainly the driver that influences smoothness and Qimage is not 16 bit throughout so in theory should be handicapped at that aspect. However Qimage has always delivered an excellent detail quality.
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Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst
340+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htmupdate april 2012: Harman by Hahnemühle, Innova IFA45 and more
