choosing the right printer for color AND b&w

[ErikCaso]

hi there. i know there are a ton of such discussions, but nothing has really helped me with this. here is my situation:
i still shoot mostly film. more than half is b&w, but i shoot a fair amount of slide as well. i have an apple imac 1ghz w/1gb ram and os x.2.x. i am not a pro, but am serious about fine art photography. i plan on digitizing my photos in the near future, and half hundreds of negatives i want to blow up. most prints will be 5x7 or 8x10; the cost of doing this is obviously tremendous, hence my question for help here (will be waaaaaaaay cheaper to buy a printer and do it myself)!

i am looking for a very high quality printer that will work for color AND b&w. this means maximum resolution to compare to film and is archival quality. it need not go above 8x10, as for those i can pay to have done professionally.

i will be swithing almost entirely to digital in the next several months, but even after that i will continue to shoot b&w film.

any recommendations here? the two printers that seem the most preferred are the epson 2200 and the kodak 8500. i like the idea of the 8500's continuous tone dye-sub prints, but what i really need is something that is not a tremendous pain to use and accomodates both color and b&w while maintaining top quality.

i really appreciate any help. thanks.