I have an Epson Photo R200, which the Epson company stopped updating & supporting quite some time ago. (at least, for the Mac). I've been seeing a decline in printer performance for several months, such as the print-direct-to-CD feature no longer working, and most recently, the printer freezing in the middle of a print job. I downloaded all the most recent Epson drivers, and nothing helped. Finally, the print utility stopped working altogether.

Gutenprint appears to have completely solved my issue. Documents now print normally. Maybe not an ideal solution, but it will work until I can buy a more updated (non-Epson) printer!