I am a bit embarrassed. I came back here to say that I discovered the printer cable had been partially pulled out (I blame one of our kids - ha), which is why the printer was not being found. It had nothing to do with Zorin OS. I apologize. Excuse me while I go and eat a slice of humble pie. You are correct, too, for everything else you said, especially about CUPS and distros in general. I came to realize that shortly after my last post, but am glad to see you said the same thing. Yeah. Correct.
In any case, everything else I said still stands. The bugs with VLC, X.org, and so on and on (e.g., lacking certain features that other OSes have, like better power management with games and such). Alas, I have switched to Linux Mint. I will revisit using Zorin OS when version 17.2 comes out. Hopefully that iteration will at least contain a built-in option for better power management (like the "Inhibit" applet in Linux Mint). That alone would make me return as an user; no problem (and would attract a fair number of new users, I think). It would align with Zorin OS' goal of having things "just work" much like how they would in Windows. For sure.
Thanks, and the same goes to everyone else.