It is not really much of an issue anymore because most all modern CD burning hardware and software do comply to that standard. The name is still tossed around within the industry because it sounds techie.
EDIT: Basically, if the audio CD you just burned plays fine in all of your CD players, then you are good.
That is utterly and entirely WRONG (and there mounds and mounds of bad CD's out there to prove it - Along with dozens and dozens of performers, dancers and gymnasts who lost in the finals because their disc wouldn't play at the competition - Along with more than a few bands I've dealt with myself who spent entire weekends unwrapping 1,000 discs and re-packaging them with 'proper' discs***).
YES - you need specialized software. Although I *UNDERSTAND* (although I've not proven it to myself) that Nero will burn a compliant disc "behind the scenes" (without the user's input or knowledge). iTunes (along with the vast majority of consumer burning programs I've used) WILL NOT burn a compliant disc (period - end of story). Although I DO know of people who had the misfortune of sending discs authored with iTunes out to be replicated (and the replication house was stupid enough to go ahead and run them off stating "Hey, we just replicated what was sent to us" as the lamest excuse I've ever heard).
TRUE - it's not rocket science. But it's rarely ever as simple as plopping a bunch of files in a burn-folder and writing an 'audio' disc...
One 'warning' I can give you - If you aren't 100% certain that the disc you're authoring is compliant to specifications, then assume it's not. If you can't edit the PQ information at the frame level, consider it worthless. If you can't output a frame-accurate PQ log, assume there isn't one. If you can't specify *for certain* that there's a 150-frame gap before the first start marker, assume it doesn't exist.
*** True - Many 'recent' CD players play fast & loose with the discs they'll play. But then again, many of them with play MP3/data discs as well. Ironically, the CD players that really count - The professional decks used in radio stations, broadcast and performing arts venues - those are the decks that are usually the most picky. And even then - You might put a disc in and it'll play just fine. Put it in again and suddenly it'll start playing in the middle of track 7 and you can see the time code slipping in and out. Put it in again and it won't play at all. Put it in again and it might play just fine.
You just never know...
But you won't have that problem with a properly authored disc.
SIDE-NOTE: the drive used rarely ever had/has anything to do with it. It's just a burner. It's simply burning a stream of data. It' whether that stream of data is formatted properly that will make it or break it.
That said - A properly formatted burn doesn't guarantee a lot of things either (going back to "it's rarely as simple as...").