For anyone that may come across this post. You can significantly improve printer performance by disabling the EFI fiery print PLUGIN. A simple one liner does it:
defaults write /Library/Printers/Canon/PS3/PDEs/EF565447/EF565447 (FF).plugin/Contents/Info.plist PMSandboxCompatiblePDEs bool=false
This does not allow the plugin to load for any sandboxed applications, which is just about every app nowadays. You will still get all your printer options through a dropdown menu. After making this change, printing was instant.
Understand that this is just ONE plugin for ONE printer. You could do this for any plug, however. To identify which plugin your printer is using, open the associated .PPD file and scroll to the bottom. It tells you there. Find the plugin and show contents. find the info.plist and make the changes as above.
Highly suggested.