In the OfficeJet in question I only used genuine cartridges, but every few year it would stop receiving black and white faxes because (the nearly full) color cartidge was passing its expiry date - forcing me to throw away the full color cartridge and buying a new one.
No more HP for me. Never again.
http://www.dailytech.com/HPs+Web+Connected+Printers+May+Prin...
Fixed the problem temporarily by getting cheap chinese cartridge off ebay, but Epson is now very much on my boycott list.
It printed all the text in orange and the 2 arrows were a perfect red.
However, you don't want to use 100% registration for text as it can easily eat up your ink/toner. A good compromise if you need deeper blacks is 100% K with a bit of CMY (don't know the percentage).
I'm not discarding the idea that printer companies do it so the customer has to buy more ink; that may be somewhat true. However, even high end printers that are designed to last still do this to an extent, so it's not entirely a money grab.
Customers are cheap and lazy. If their printer breaks, they go buy a new $40 one instead of doing research and finding a quality one for a few hundred. "What does this $300 laser do that this $40 inkjet doesn't!?" You mean besides last longer, actually work when you need it to, and not have nozzles that clog up?
People continuing to purchase cheap PoS printers and just accept that "printers break after a year; get a new one" is what allows this nonsense to keep happening.