Good on you. The main problem is that Lite-On says to get new firmware...yet they have none for the drive on the site. If I could find one, I'd try another burning program. I'm hoping that the copy of Nero that came with it was the problem.
Me, I was just looking for a DVD reader. A friend recomended this one to me, and I trusted his judgement. I igored the bad reviews because it got some good reviews after the firmware install (which I wasn't able to do...I did however get third party firmware, no change), and like I said, was more interested in its reading capabilities than it's burning capabilities.