One more vote for Lite-On 52x burners. Very reliable burns, and they're often available around $20 after rebate. In fact, this week, Best Buy has the Lite-On 52x32x52 for $19.99 after rebates.
Many brands are actually rebadge Lite-On's, including Memorex, Sony,
some Verbatim's. You can tell by the distinctive look of the front panel. It has a single Eject button on the right, about the size and shape of a cold capsule (long, straight top and bottom. If it has two push buttons, or the button is another shape, it probably is not a Lite-On. Verbatim's with serial numbers having only digits are Lite-On's, and not even rebadged. The others are probably AOpen.
If you get a Memorex, or Sony, most people like the performance better if you replace the original firmware with the original Lite-On firmware. For more info on how to do this, read the
forums on CDFreaks.com. Replacing the firmware is a bit tricky, so pay close attention to the instructions. Once you do it, you can update it with the Windows based firmware replacement progs from
Lite-On's update site.