This sentiment could get spread around a little more, don't you think? Video drivers, Automobile OBDs, ink cartridges, cell phone chargers (I hear the EU finally did something about this one!).
We've already achieved the first level of interoperability, thanks in large part to Microsoft with the early versions of Windows. It used to be that every program had to write their own print driver, so autocad had their set of supported printers, and wordperfect had their own set of supported printers, etc. MS added a layer of translation so they could both write to the windows print API, and then the job of print drivers was foisted on the printer manufacturers. OS X has a similar printing API, and linux/unix has CUPS.
Unfortunately we need to go the next step - we are currently writing drivers for each device/platform/os. So for each HP printer, there's a windows driver, an OS X driver, a linux driver, and even an iOS app. Not only that, but there isn't one HP driver for all their printers - each of their models has slightly different APIs that require a different driver. If the industry could get onboard with one printer API, then everyone could write to that same API and it would simply work, regardless of device, operating system, platform, or connection method.
There are some existing APIs many printers understand now, especially network printers, but the manufacturers (and consumers) demand more features than these APIs support, such as ink levels, scanning, faxing, etc, and to some degree printer manufacturers prefer to keep things incompatible so people have a hard time switching once they've invested in a particular printer company.
Unfortunately air print is not the answer. Not only is it bare bones, but Apple doesn't freely give the spec away. People have reverse engineered it a bit, but Apple is doing what it always does - controlling it tightly and limiting it to those they deem worthy. It gives a good consumer experience because it will just work since Apple demands so much of those that they officially support, but it's anti-competitive, which limits it significantly.
USB has done a lot in this regard for smaller devices, like keyboards, mice, audio headsets, and even webcams can follow the USB class for their device type and when they do they don't require drivers to run - you just plug them in and they work. There is a printer class, but it's limited, and wouldn't apply to network printers anyway.