I've had no love from Lightroom either when printing to my Canon Pixma Pro 9000, but it does print great to my Epson Picture mate PM 260. I have no clue why, but I was tired of wasting paper. PS I get a pretty darn close to my monitoe print when using the correct paper profiles.
I will read those links though and try again, cause Lightroom's printing is much easier than opening the file in PS every time
Best,
Jay