I have one of the 9890s. I have all three brands actually, and treat them very well. The Epson is the newest and by far the most problematic, as it is with all my friends who have them as well.
The Canon and HpZ are perfectly suited for use in all applications of design and photography, so there is certainly nothing unique about Epson trying to market to all these segments.
The pressure issues with the Epson large format units is more than well documented, and the nightmares of techs changing out parts randomly is also common knowledge. The only people I've ever heard defending all this are the sales people. Even the techs are fed up with the latest series. Let's just hope the new units have really solved these issues, rather than just giving us more marketing hype. I want Epson to succeed because I want at a minimum two strong reliable brands competing on photographic quality and making improvements, and we have no idea at all what HP is going to do. All three of these companies are very focused on the design market because they believe that is where the profit is. People using photography have become less and less quality conscious as the years go by rather than more conscious. Everybody is a photograper now if they can put something from a phone on Facebook with a instragram filter slapped on it. It's more and more a throwaway market.