Phil,
Size is more than just how large I can print. It involves unloading and file cabinet and moving the cabinet into storage (plus finding room to store the stuff in the cabinet).
I don´t understand what you mean, so maybe the following is irrelevant, but just my experience:
I am an amature and started off with a small Canon printer just to get a feal for the printing thing. It turn out I really loved printing and I quickly desired to gain more controll, better prints and the ability to print larger. I upgraded to a 17" Epson 4000 with the ability to use roll paper in adition to sheet paper. I quickly became addicted to seing my images on larger prints and never printed any samller than A3. Since then I only use roll paper of my favorite choice and never miss the sheet option. The few times I need samler prints, it is usually for som family album where I find mail order services quite adequate.
Quite recently I decided to upgrade again and had to choose between a 17, 24 or 44 printer. Although I at the time didn´t do many prints at size A2, when I did I found that there was little room for a border around the image if I wanted it big on my Epson 4000. Also, the ability to prinnt really large from time to time was very tempting. To decide what I really needed I actually went to several exhibitions with a measure to se how big I really needed and found that a 24 would do for almost every image i make. If I wanted to print on canvas I would have gone for a 44.
The difference between prints from 24" Canon, Epson and HP printers were to my eye very small. Yes, you can see a difference if you compare, but which is "best" I really can´t tell. Once you get one of these printers home and can´t compare, I seriously doubt you are going to feel you are missing anything.
After reading the review on Spectraflow.com of the Epson and HP I found they would both be good printers for me. One thing that made me go for the HP is that it is the second generation of a fairly new printer, since this means they have gained some experience and had the oportunity to improve things that didn´t work. The other is that the HP dealer I use gives much better pre sales service than the Epson dealers, and so far post sale service and support has also been very good.
I took delivery of a HP Z3200ps some months ago, and I am very satisfied with it and the prints it makes.
Christopher