It doesn't appear to be complete transparency because TFA said "opening much of our source code". I'd like to also see the code that they are not sharing.

Don't know if Epson has this, but I bought a Canon inkjet once. I ran the print head calibration frequently to get a good printout which put ink into the 'waste ink tank'. When the tank got full, it was time to buy a new printer. To replace the waste ink tank you basically had to take apart the printer, find a replacement tank, and put the printer back together again. The labor cost was more than the price of a new printer.

I use composition notebooks. They work fine for most of my work. I can paste in computer generated details when I need to. In addition, I create a text file to help me find something in 28 notebooks I have written at my current job. The text file, one for each notebook, has a possibly long line for each page in the notebook. It starts with the page number and lists some details that relate to the page. I use emacs grep to locate the notebook # and page # containing matching details. Now, I hear you say, "You haul your 28 notebooks with you?" I use my scanner at home to convert the pages of my notebooks to JPG files, and use FastStone Image Viewer to look at them. Each set of images it in its own directory, named for the notebook number. I have the same JPG and TXT files at home and at work. The main theme is to use formats that will be usable for the foreseeable future: JPG and TXT files.

I use cheap composition notebooks to take notes of any kind. I write the page number in the corner of each page, since the notebooks that have printed page numbers are an order of magnitude more expensive. If there is a small printout I need to keep I get the scissors and rubber cement from my desk drawer and cut/paste away. As far as searching for a note, I have an index text file for each notebook with a page number and a summary of each page, mostly keywords like ''53 selinux, apache source, tracker" that I have in the file 18.txt in my NOTEBOOKS directory. I use grep to find the note which tells me the file and page number for each hit. I scan the pages and keep a copy at home and at work so I can look at the page content. The FastStone or XnView image viewers make it very easy to look look at the pages.
The main rationale for using 'stone knives and bearskins' is longevity. JPG and TXT files will be readable for many years to come. This may not be the case for other formats.