When the printer was released they did not have a exhibition luster paper for the printer.
You talking about "Luster" or "Fiber"?
Luster is a type of RC based papers Epson has sold for a long time. Epson's "Exhibition Fiber Paper" is a fiber based paper that shipped end of 2007 beginning of 2008 (pretty sure it was "shown" at Photo Expo in 2007, the press release I have is for Oct. 8, 2007). A bunch of papers from several companies were released in that time frame with similar surfaces for photo black inks instead of matte surfaces for matte black inks.
As for Epson sending you a 9600 printer in 2007, I wonder why they would do that since they started shipping the 9800 in 2005 (the announcement was May 10, 2005). You sure it wasn't a 9800 they sent you?
BTW, a lof of people have meetings with the Epson paper folks...and some have had more influence than others. Prolly the most influential has been Mac Holbert and perhaps Greg Gorman and JP Caponigro.
By the way I'm not saying Epson hasn't done some amazing things they have and after talking to you Jeff even you can't say your happy with everything a company does or their lack of response time to fix things, Thats the point I was trying to make!!!!!
If I do say something about a company on a public forum, I like to have my facts straight. I also tend to avoid trying to poke them in the eye with a pointed stick. But hey, that's just me.