My HP printer has the same chip in all 4 of it's toner cartridges, luckily, I did a quick search on the internet and read where to go in the settings to override that setting. I run it right down to the point where the print quality starts to degrade before I'm "forced" to change cartridges.
There are always trade-offs in the design of things. When a product takes from 3-5 years to go from a concept into a product on a store shelf, most products are already obsolete before the first one is sold.
That's simply due to the advancement of technology.
The fact that your printer needs a "waste toner" tank, screams poor design to me. One of those "Oh shit, what do we do now?" moments in the product development process. They probably noticed that it was dripping toner out the bottom and the easiest fix was to put a "bucket" under it to catch the overflow.