I had an Epson printer which was really excellent, but the heads gummed up and a repair would have cost more than a new printer.
Switched to Canon simply because the heads were incorporated into the cartridges.
Loads of rubbish talked about clogging up using using non-Canon inks, rubbish, because you get a new head every time you replace a cartridge.
My IP4500 (with duplex printing) cost about £55 delivered but a new set of 'proper' inks cost far more than that, so I bought a double pack of dirt cheap ones from ebay at about 1/10th of the price and they work fine.
If you really feel you need to use Canon products for a particular project, fine, buy them then go back to the cheap stuff when they run out.