Followup on HP
My new printer arrived yesterday via Fedex ground, and by all appearances works fine. I packed the old one up in the box, called up UPS (it turns out for ARS packages there is no pickup fee to me — usually if I call them for a pickup, there is a pickup charge, but not for return packages! w00t) and they're coming tomorrow to cart away the carcass of my old system.
HP so far has done me right.