Re: The problems:
"My Epson, which I use probably once a fortnight, needs print head clean and about 5 pages of printing every time I turn it on"
I had a similar problem with my Epson printer but only with the Epson black ink.
That black ink was a pigment ink that regularly clogged up the print head and all I had to do was switch to a generic black dye ink and that solved the problem. As for the three Epson colour inks, they were dye inks and they never caused a problem.