the print drivers were moved to the individual workstations and off the server. This has resulted in an amazing speed increase in printing and imported items retrieval time, even for those units previously hard wired, well over 10 times.
My experience exactly matches yours. Going from a peer-to-peer network to server-client (workgroup, not AD), there were constant complaints about slowness of the print and fax services through the server, as well as network printers "disappearing" from some of the workstations. We finally did exactly what you did (installing network print & fax drivers on the individual workgroup computers), and have very responsive printing now, and happier staff.
Although I realize that this has sacrificed some network security, as well as the ability to control access, this was overbalanced by running faster now. I have the suspicion that server software may be oversold for small organizations.
