Epson 4900 premature printhead failures

Is it just me? I bought two Stylus Pro 4900's last year during the big rebate sale. One for a friend and one for myself.

In this time, neither of us have used the printer very much. We do print the nozzle checks about once a week to keep the nozzles from becoming clogged.

My friend has only printed about 1 roll of canvas since purchase, and about 2 months ago, his LK printhead suddenly stopped working. No nozzles would print. Tried a new cartridge (thank you, Epson), but no relief. A technician wound up replacing the printhead.

Today, on my 4900, (which apart from the weekly nozzle check pages) has only about 20 pages printed, and as I was printing my first canvas page, about half way through the print, the Yellow stopped. I printed a nozzle check and sure enough, Yellow was dead. I turned of and back on and reprinted the nozzle check. Same thing. I then replaced the Yellow cartridge (which showed about 33% remaining) with a new one. I did a Yellow cleaning to prime it, and printed a nozzle check. Yellow still dead.

So, now I have to have my 4900 either swapped or repaired. This with only about 20-30 pages TOTAL printed.

Are others having similar POOR reliability? This is ridiculous on such an expensive printer. It's also a hassle exchanging the printer since the thing weighs a ton!

Now, off to call Epson...