An interesting drive I came across recently is the Sony (Optiarc) AD-7200A IDE (SATA versions are AD-7200S, though I never checked if they were available). These are available as OEM ones, retail box packed ones still seem to be the DRU-190A.
Has very good reviews on CDFreaks, good 3rd party firmware support from Liggy-Dee, and is even rated better than the present favourite - the Samsung SH-203