Here is my personal experience with the EPSON R200 - I use it as a part time business, dealing with many companies to print CD and DVDs - and so far I ahve printed almost 1500, with the same printer and have not had any problem - the print quality is excellent - At first I had to get used to it and manually adjust colours in my software to get colours to match - I always use the photo enhance mode / vivid and get good results. Once my genuine ink has run out I have gotten the JETTEC 30% extra life, unlike the EPSON cartridges, those do not waste ink and are designed in a way to use the extra 30% of ink that EPSON wastes so you print more pages with it…so far I am amazed, no clogged nozzles nothing and putting discs side to side could not see a visible difference.
About ink splattering on the rollers and in the printer that is very unusual - Have you tried doing any manual modifications of your printer? For example I’ve seen cases where people would extend the tube inside the pritner, outside to a waste bottle and would often dislodge that tube from the suction pump - causing ink to spill all over inside the pritner and eventually overflow and get all parts dirty.
In regards to the tray - There is no known problems with the printer itself. Personally I have not had ANY problems with the original tray - it gets pulled and ejected properly. You need to make sure when you insert the tray that it is inserted BELOW the 2 guides and that the arrows are aligned - If you do not push it far enough with the arrows the tray will not get pulled properly. Also do not attempt to push it further beyond the arrow - If you force it, you can damage it.
My guess is, that people who have had problems have either had faulty trays to start with or that plastic edge at the end of the tray is bent, this is the most common problem. If properly handled there should not be any problem.
As far as the R200 vs. R220, it looks to me like EPSON is cutting some corners, like most companies. The R220 has a flimsier design, it appears more light weight and more cheap/fragile. They have changed the 3 buttons with improved ones - The inks are the same… The software is updated and uses a new revision of the print driver. Unfortunately there is no “BLACK INK” only option. Some improvements were also made with overall colour saturation and offers stronger/better yellow/reds, honestly if you are happy with your R200 there is no reason to upgrade…i don’t see any reason personally.
). Another option is to modify the tray from the r200 (which is what I did), that requires not only removing material from all sides of the tray but also adding three reflectors for the printers positioning system (quite easy actually). It took about an hour to make, with the help of a belt sander, I also used a straight edge with a utility knife to score the plastic to remove the larger section.