Hi uyrnihssi.
I found an happy mediem over a long peroid of time. I now use 80gsm Everyday HP photo paper at £10 for 100 sheets, but had to mess around with my printer settings to get a true to screen image (I used 240gsm photo paper in the past and whilst the results were stunning, the cost was crazy). I get retail quality standard covers with my settings/paper/ContinuousInkSystem (its awesome). I use nero cover designer to rescale my covers to the right size.