Apparently all that was needed was to reselect the printer in the Mac System Print & Fax Preferences. Freehand now prints as well as it ever did.
I deleted the old printer and found and reinstalled the Epson 88 and now all is well with Freehand. I locked the Print & Fax window!
Although the Epson was selected it was apparently not identified as the active printer. Rebooting the printer selection process ended the troubles. Very simple after trying every other imaginable solution.
Hopefully this may help others using Leopard 10.5.8 who are experiencing printer problems.