Lousy paper handler

I bought this guy because of its network capability -- at last, all my computers can print through one printer!  I remember how excited I was when I first loaded it up with ink, and I was impressed with how the red LED lights would come on under each ink chamber, making them glow, and making it very clear what to do next.  And I thought thank goodness I'm done with HP.

But I've had it for over a year now, and we've had something of a rocky marriage.  Right now I've lost the ability to print cyan -- perhaps something's plugged (yes, I have used non-Canon print cartridges -- at $16+ per cartridge, I'd be paying half the price of the printer just to refill with genuine Canon ink, which they know and love).  I can understand not being able to print color pictures, or having them print out with incorrect colors, but to have black and white outputs print magenta?  What do you know, it's using up color ink when it prints B&W.  What a waste.

But the stuff that sends me through the roof is its paper handling.  For starters, don't expect anything to print exactly vertically -- there's always a slant.  Sometimes it's so bad it's downright embarassing and I've had to print documents multiple times if I don't want to look ridiculous.  (And yes, I've adjusted the plastic fingers to align the paper flow, etc.)  Next, it has two trays for paper, which sounds great, you can put crummy paper in one and nice in the other, or use the top feeder for envelopes or something, right?  Nope.  It's almost impossible to control which feeder it's coming from.  Right now I'm trying to print onto some labels, I've placed them in the bottom tray.  I've set the printer feed switch on the front of the machine to "lower tray", I've set the printer options to "follow printer feed switch" and when I press print it suddenly flips the indicator light to "top tray" and feeds me a nice new sheet of paper from the top tray with my label information printed on it.  As soon as it's done, the indicator light goes back to "bottom tray".  Swell.

And the usual paper jams.  What a drag.

Last gripe, if a call comes in on line two (my "fax" line) and I pick it up and talk to someone, we'll talk for a minute or so when it suddenly will try to receive the fax -- piercing loud shrill fax.  Hate it.  I leave the power cord accessible, so I can pull the power.  What kind of machine requires yanking the power cord once a week?

So as much as I've hated my days with HP, at the end of this year, I'm still searching for a better match.  This one aint it, sorry.  I'll use it til it breaks (and I thankfully got an extended warranty) but when it goes, no hard feelings.