Superdrive reliability in PB G4 - replacement suggestions?

Question

I've checked the forums and see similar postings, but not so much recently. Of course, it's an older machine, [Powerbook G4 Titanium, 1Ghz] and we can't expect them to last forever
My superdrive isn't as old as the pb, but it's more than 2 years old now. The original drive worked flawlessly burning CDs and DVDs just fine until just shy of 6 months left on my AppleCare policy. Then my display bezel came apart (NOT a superdrive problem) and I had to send the pb into Apple for repair. 2 display screens, 3 superdrives and 3 or 4 (maybe 5?) logic boards later, oh yes, 5.5 months later, most everything was working again, and my AppleCare ran out. I had more problems with the unit AFTER Apple worked on it than I had in the first 2.5 years, and it seemed that something else was broken each time I got it back. A month after AppleCare ran out, I was back for one last time with the superdrive failing, so that's the newest component.
Anyway, I realized that some media just didn't work well, and between the 3 drives in my 2 identical powerbooks, and a 15" iMac 877Mhz, the only real issue was compatibility (reading things written on other drives). The iMac will only burn on high quality DVDs and some brands of CDs and will not even recognize a CDRW. The UJ-815 drive in my laptop "has been" the most reliable, and would write on media that the iMac would fail to verify on.
That was until about a week (or two ago). It was working just fine. I had just burned 3-4 DVDs and played a Stargate-SG1 DVD just fine. Last week, I went to play a different Stargate DVD and it just ejected it. Now, no matter what I put in it, it just ejects it after a couple of what I guess to be seeking attempts, or re-calibration noises. My other powerbook seems to also eject the same blank media, but disks that have data or movies are read just fine.
Is the drive dead?
Or will it just magically work again in a week or so of not trying to use it?
I've seen the user 'eww' has responded to a lot of these topics with good information, so I'd like his or her opinion, and that of anyone else with any experience with this.
If it's dead, then I'll need some kind of replacement, and it seems that an internal replacement is the best bet, as most newer external drives are USB 2.0 and I'm fairly sure this is a USB 1.1 system. Is there a list of replacement drive available somewhere, that are compatible. I see nothing on Apple's own site, and I'm not about to put in the exact same drive, now that DVD+R and the new dual layer DVDs are what's mostly available in stores.
OWC has apple compatible drives at ~$99 (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MCTDVDSDB8DL/) but I notice these are all 8x, whereas I understand that even the Matshita DVD-R UJ-815 can run at 16x if the firmware is upgraded.
I'm running 10.5 on my laptop, and 10.4 on my wife's, and 10.3 on the iMac. (Yeah, I know, I ought to make them consistent!)
So, please... I'd like to get some recommendations, as I know there other drives out there, that must be compatible. I took a look at the xlr8yourmac drive reviews, but am still slogging through them one at a time to see if there's a particular brand or model that is compatible. Most of the upgrades were talking about drives compatible with Panther or Tiger, so I hope to hear more recent info from the folks here.
Thanks.
-Carl

Answer 1

Ok, Fry's didn't have ANY slot load internal drives, so that was a bust.
I took out the superdrive and opened the top. The inside is nearly spotless. No dust bunnies or anything. I didn't look at it under a bright light, and will do that during the day, but it doesn't look like there's much in the way of anything to clean. Nothing looks out of shape, bent or mis-aligned, although that latter part is a little difficult to determine without it plugged in and loaded with a CD/DVD.
My PB didn't like it when I tried to power it up with the "accessories" (modem, etc.) not plugged in, so I plugged them back in to the flex cables, with everything connected except for the optical drive itself. Now it's happy even without the superdrive.
I'll see if there's anything that looks like it needs cleaning or polishing and go from there. The underside of the lid looks to have some wear, or some residue from some media (the top) having made contact with it, but nothing major.
I'll let you know if the drive accepts any media after I re-install it. At this point, my guess is that I will not see any improvement, and should start looking for a replacement.
The Pioneer DVR-K06 seems to be the frontrunner (the OWC drive at last review didn't seem to handle CDRW, but they have one for $150 or so that does). The OptiArc drives are made by Sony/NEC and all the web references I found so far were in the UK or europe. The newest one of those had something called LabelFlash which seems really cool, but (of course) may not be available on the Mac, unless Toast can use it. (It allows you to flip the media over and burn a label onto the surface of the other side.) You'd think that that would be a great "Mac" feature
Any comments? Or ideas on what next? Looks like an online search for a "current" K06 model...