Plextor's great. I have a 12x/16x/32x (i THINK... i'm at work now, can't just look at it), and it's a superb burner. No bad burns yet, unless it was on crappy ol' Office Depot disks (and NONE of those turned out right... bad laminates).
Ohp, before I say "no bad burns," let me clarify that for some reason if I don't burn at 4x, the CD won't play on Danny's little jambox thingey. You know, one of those WalMart $30 ultra-compact dealies. 1x won't play, 2x won't play, but 4x does just great. I don't gamble with anything larger than 4x, so YMMV on those...
I also have not used many burners, so keep that in mind. I went with Plextor because ZDNet told me to (back when Jesse Berst was 'da man), and haven't regretted the decision at all.