I think pretty much everything you mention is a solved problem. To contrast, at work, we have some big fancy photocopiers that print too scattered around the f

I think pretty much everything you mention is a solved problem. To contrast, at work, we have some big fancy photocopiers that print too scattered around the floor. To print, you print to a 'smart queue' from the desktop, then you can walk up to any photocopier/printer and log in with your badge (same as is used for the doors/building access), and print whatever you printed to the 'smart queue'. If one printer is broken, out of paper, etc. (which has never happened to me), you could go up to any other printer in the organization and log in/fetch/print from there. I guess the photocopiers take entire reams of paper of various sizes, and there's someone that refills them so they never run out. Probably there is some maintenance contract that keeps them all working. Anyway, I'd say in my experience having worked there for five years, I can print with 100% reliability, and the 'smart queue' approach is much nicer than having to choose the 'right' printer from some big dropdown, sometimes accidentally printing something to some wrong far-off distant printer, etc.