XP stations on network can't share each others printers

I have 2 xp sp2 workstations on a windows 2003 domain, each has an epson Stylus C84 printer attached.
Each machine can print fine to it's local printer. I can add the other stations printer to each workstation (and see it) but when I try to print a test page to the networked printer on the other station The printer portion goes non responsive (when I close X out, it ends the task).
I have loaded the the latest C84 drivers on both machines.. The funny thing is that sometimes it will work but slow, othertimes not..
so the problem appears to be intermittent.

I am considering the following as possible problems (unsure on any of them).
1 Printer is locally attached to station A via usb and the other printer is attached via parallel to station B, could this be some kind of bi-directional cable problem?
The share names on the printers are pretty long (no special characters though) epsonc84repair and epsonc84repair2..(note 1st 14 characters in share name are the same) would it be better for me to delete everything and use shorter printer and share names?
Could there be some issues with the sp2 windows firewall?

I know this is a simple problem I just can't seem to get past it..

any ideas would be very appreciated..