Why do you want a combo drive? I have a good Tosh CD/CDR/CDRW/DVD one, but I also have a basic CD drive and was vaguely thinking about a DVD writer until I filled that slot up with my Audigy Platinum.

I would have thought that your best bet is to have separate drives wherever possible, lowering cost of failures and increasing resilience. Although admittedly I haven't had any failures yet (touch wood) This even lets you rip and burn simultaneously, which is just a good phrase in itself

Am I alone in preferring separate modules for each function?