In the UK I’m seeing very little in the way of availability in optical drives, I’ve currently got my eye on a BR writer drive that’s about 1.5x the usual cost and on pre-order because if this is the last of the new optical drives then I’m going to want one spare!
As for being picky about how well the drive does such-and-such, I think we’re practically speaking well past the point of having a selection available to choose from.
The only situation I can think of where I think a drive probably scratched a disc is when a drive I encountered allowed the tray to be ejected when the disc was still spinning. Otherwise, if a disc is stationary in the tray, how is the tray going to scratch it?