Then there are the horror stories of CDs cracking up inside the drive and shards flying out (happened to a friend of mine, but it all stayed inside the drive). I read about some people who were very concerned with this at schools, where the drives are often at eye-level. And at the end of last year, a load of manufactures decided not to produce 56x CD-Rs, staying at 48x instead:
"Along with Sony, Yamaha, and Plextor, Maxell has decided that spinning a disc fast enough for 52X recording is dangerous, producing a level of stress that can damage the disc"
I just get by on a 36x reader, 8x writer (slow, but does the job) and the A1200 makes do with a 4x reader!