The tech was probably giving a blanket warning as he has probably seen a few printers plugged into cheap surge protectors which were unable to supply a steady stream of power to the device.
A surge suppressor (only battery backups are true surge protectors as any device without a battery can only suppress spikes to a certain point) will simply condition the power to your device, knocking out the peaks that occasionally occur in power lines.
It is also dependent on how sensitive your equipment is to power fluctuations. And from experience it is not the spikes, but the dropouts, that cause problems. Any good device will have some suppression capability built into it. But if there is not enough power there is nothing a surge suppressor can do for you.
I have been using battery backups for over ten years on almost every electronic device in my house over $100 but I believe the cost of a battery backup capable of supplying the necessary power to your printer may be cost prohibitive (see this thread from a few days ago
http://signs101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33250&highlight=battery+backup)
All in all you are probably best to get a good surge suppressor and from the other post it seems like the printers draw a LOT of power so don't put anything else on the strip as that can cause dropouts as well. If you get a good quality suppressor they typically come with up to a million dollar coverage if a spike does damage your equipment.
