/etc/printcap can be changed or CUPS can add printer under Samba. Need to refresh the printers list periodically rather than requiring all smbd's to get a SUGHUP.
re-polling printers is required in one more case. If you start cups after samba then samba won't see your printers. That's sad of course :)
I'm closing this one out. After looking into it some more, it seems that there are better places to spend energy. New printers are always available via UNC path. And a simple 'smbcontrol smbd reload-config' updates the displayed printer list in the network neighdorhood. Maybe later sometime if this gets to be a higher priority.
originally reported against 3.0aph24. Bugzilla spring cleaning. Removing old alpha versions.