anyways, here's a Samsung DVD+/-RW drive that supports lightscribe, only thirtyish (is that a real word, i don't think so ) dollars... you could get 4 for you budget...
EDIT: btw, supports all forms of DVD/CD media out there...
i'd say that's CD read/writing speeds... DVD hasn't quite got up to those speeds (although DVD drives transfer more actual information than CD drives do at similar spin speeds)... as for if it's necessary, i don't think that small of a speed change will be noticeable to the average user... especially read speeds...
if you want me to find something else, just say so ...