Well, the driver model itself is not the problem. In fact, from what little I know, it seems to be nice in that it's remarkably transparent for what it's doing. The problem is that Windows provides no way to implement filters on the server side. Fortunately, RedMon allows me to hack in there to do that. The other problem is that Alps apparently doesn't want to release the spec for their printer language (I've called and asked repeatedly so that I could implement it myself). This makes no sense. Since they have a very small and diminishing stake in the printer market, it's not like it makes sense for them to want to keep other manufacturers away from their spec, as it wouldn't gain the other manufacturers anything to use it, since there are already two standards, and those standards, PCL and PS, are both freely available, so it's not like they would lose anything by releasing theirs. Remarkably annoying.

Are you saying that I could get a RIP that would understand my printer's language? How? (And define RIP for me. I've used them before, but I never knew what part of it was actually the RIP. The network connectivity? The translation to a new language? The combination?)