I have a ScanSnap iX500 sitting on my desktop and connected via USB to my computer. The scanSnap is many times faster than the flatbed scanner, scans the front and back of documents in a single pass, has great resolution, and has a document feeder that works very well.
You could use automator to make a folder action that prints anything that drops into snapscan's destination folder. that would effectively be an automated photocopier.
