ok, I'm not exactly sure what happened but the problem seems to have been resolved for the time being. I uninstalled alcohol then I downloaded and installed the exact same version but from a different source. I fired up the image burning wizard again and lo and behold, now I have a couple of freshly burnt discs with RMPS and all. I still can't figure out why one alcohol version worked and a virtually identical one didn't, but I haven't been having any difficulties since the re-install. If the problem re-surfaces again then I'll come back and give this thread another bump, but if not then I apologise for taking up much of your time.

Cheers.