FWIW FOP from Apache's XML project group does a pretty good job of generating PDF. It would of course have to run strictly on the server.
I appreciate all your advice on Print bugs, I thought I was just experiencing noobie pains. I guess I'll just settle on displaying an HTML page and let them print that. It's too bad, printing a single page is really nice in flex, but if it goes downhill, as many have said, with multi-page grids, screw it! I don't have the time to make it work.