MFP M480f - no drivers! & won't work properly with Mac

[Alastair_M]

My M480 was bulletproof and worked flawlessly when my desktop machine was a PC running Windows 10. But I recently switched to Mac (because everyone else had gone to Mac) and I've had nothing but trouble:

• Printing often fails (more than half the time), either it doesn't print at all or the page comes out with a "printer error" overtyped on the printed copy.
• Printing is generally slow... way slower than it should be. 
• The printer never seems to install correctly on a Mac (either the first time, or any other time I've ever tried to reinstall it). The common error is the HP setup software says it can't use Bonjour to find the printer and I should enable it in the printer (I already have done so).
• The latest setup error is even more annoying. The official HP driver download software (HP Easy Start) finds the printer, but then comes up with the error "We were not able to locate any software options for this product" and redirects me to the HP support site... which, of course, just sends me back to the same download link for HP Easy Start!

I just can't believe that such a high quality printer can be this terrible to use. It's horrible. I'm a week away from junking it, and it's not that old.

This time when I tried downloading the HP software (for the 99th time) I notice the support page thought my Mac was on OSX10.12 (whereas I am on OSX15), interestingly OSX15 isn't even listed... the most recent is OSX14 and when I manually select that OS, it takes me back to the SAME software!! 😂😂😂😡😡😡.

At this stage I am hoping for some wise experienced words on three separate topics which are, quite likely, related and I am trying to piece the problem together:

1. Any reason anyone can think of why I have never even once had the printer discovery via Bonjour work (which, I have a hunch, is related to some of the other issues).
2. Why does the official driver installer software (HP Easy Start) not have any drivers for me and where can I find them if I have to download them manually?
3. In general -- this printer totally sucks from ALL of the Macs in the house. What could the issue be and what if anything can I do about it?

To complete the picture, the printer is connected via Ethernet (100baseT wired connection) to the same LAN segment as all the devices. It has a static IP address (192.168.0.216) on a network with mask 255.255.255.0, IP addresses for all the computers are in the DHCP range x.x.x.2-99.

Thanks in advance. Right now I can't even print!! (because I deleted the old printer to try to reinstall it and now the driver installer can't find any software!).

Alastair