I have had positive experiences with lite-on drives. My old combo drive from many years ago still works fine. Since I recently bought a new dvd writer, I have now kept my old combo drive away, to be used as a backup incase the new drive suddenly conks off.
Last I checked, most of these dvd writers cost anywhere from 850 to 1100 bucks. Also, the LG and Samsung drives were sold in a plastic sheet with a cd. I'm not sure if these oem drives even come with a sata cable(Need clarification regarding this). The Lite-on and ASUS writers I saw, were sold in their respective boxes. It doesn't matter though, as there's hardly anything extra in the box besides slightly better packaging,a nero disc,sata cable, and a thin instruction manual.
On a side note....blank sony dvd's are still pretty expensive(25rs). I would have thought they would come down in price. No idea about Moser baer dvd quality.