That's a good price on the Pioneer. I myself purchase nothing but Plextor. Got my 16X when they were offering a $30 rebate - and it only took less than 4 weeks to get it - which is some kind of record, for me at least.
Not only do they perform extremely well, I find them durable having burned at least 200 DVD's so far on it. Not really discussed here is another plus with Plextor's. That is --> you can actually find upgrades without wading through 15 pages and 3 sites. Sony has their stuff buried who knows where. I have stopped using Lite-on all together as their support and durability are close to zero.
