Digital BW, The Print

Hello everyone,

I have a show coming up at a local coffee shop and I would like to produce some nice B&W 
prints.  I currently have a Canon MP800 printer which produces fair color output but when 
it comes to B&W, particularly with a lot of detail in the shadows - forget it.  So I'd like to 
buy an inkjet printer that is capable of making high quality B&W prints.  

I capture with a Canon 20D (and occasionaly a Holga for fun), and I use a color-managed 
(Adobe RGB) workflow.  I import the RAW files into Photoshop and then convert to B&W 
using a variety of methods (channel mixer, gradient map, LAB, combining channels, etc.) 
depending upon the image.  More often than not I finish with a sepia, silver, palladium or 
other tone using again a variety of methods (color balance, curves, hue/saturation, color 
fill/overlay, etc).

I've done a lot of research here and over at the Photo.net forums, and many folks suggest 
the Epson r2400, 2200, 1280 or r220.  However, the r2400 might be overkill since I do 
not print all that often (and it is a bit of a stretch on my budget).  The Epson r220 (or 
1280/2200) with MIS inks sounds like a very affordable and high quality solution, but if I 
understand correctly (and I'm not at all sure I do) I would lose the ability to print toned 
photos.  Or at least I would have to learn a different method than I am using now (working 
in RGB color space).

If there is a better option (than RGB printing) for printing toned B&W prints digitally, I'm 
open to learning about it.  If someone could direct me to a helpful website or book, I'd 
appreciate it.  Otherwise, can you recommend a printer that would be a good fit for my 
needs?

Thank you for your help - it is much appreciated.

Chris