I haven't used it much, and have not taken a closer look. Sorry for that
Keep in mind that for example Pioneer drives are also very good when it comes to burn quality.
Arachne really likes her Samsung.
I wouldn't class the consumer drives as extremely reliable but there are quite a few unreliable brands like BTC/Emprex (do they still exist?), and some drive models (my Litey just sucks with the LV4D firmware, but I don't want to miss all the nice stuff... where is LS0Z?

).
But for 4., LG is indeed good too... even at 16x, they're not loud at all (if compared to LiteOn...)