I've been there before, REALLY several times, I feel your frustration, let me share a bit something useful.
Yes, I agree with this entirely, I'll explain.
You can entirely connect a printer via USB to a computer and then share it over the network, yes, absolutely, but... let's be realistic via experience: sometimes it will be perfect, other times it will fail, and sometimes it will be a nightmare. Why? well, there are multiple factors involved, like... many!, one of them is network discovery (yeah, some will resist believing this). Sometimes your Windows (7, 8 and even 10) forgets the setting of seeing all the devices on the network and isolates your devices. Yeah, I know... countless users will say "no, that's not true, you have to check here and there", no no no, I'm serious: sometimes things suck, I've been there on more computers you can imagine, even regarding remote desktop connections when suddenly all it works it's a restart, and sometimes not even this will work.
I could waste your whole afternoon and weekend telling you stories about setups I carefully created around network computers, be it wifi or USB and shared over the network, and others might come to refuse to believe it... (but I know some will confirm what I'm saying).
Instead, I point to solutions. I often print a lot, in the past I printed A LOT, and I've had lots of diff printers, so I'm familiar with these issues. Some printers worked perfectly, always, some at times, some were a nightmare. Really, the 2 things that worked perfectly for me are these:
1. Setting an old laptop with Windows XP, 7 or whatever with all my printers connected to it via USB, and then share them over the network. Honestly, not a single problem, even with the wireless printers. I accessed this laptop via Ethernet or WIFI, all cool.
2. Even better: I got a router with an USB port for sharing files and printers, connected all the printers to it via ethernet, USB or wireless, and then connected my computers to it via network (ethernet or wifi), even managed to get this cheap router to connect to my internet access to provide web access to all the devices. I currently have 5 printers connected, and flashed the router with tomato firmware, it's perfect. In the past had it with the original firmware, but tomato works way better. Money? it was about US$8 second hand, and yes, wired connections work way better, even if at the end you access the thing via wireless. You could try a specific device called print server too, I was about to try that there was no need.
Good luck, and hope you take what we suggest and save yourself from going nuts wasting time.