Bingo, Cressida. The extended contrast deal is supposed to give you the darker contrast without burning twice (which tends to blur the burn a little bit). Of course it takes longer. With the 1.2 media (you'll know if you've got it because it's printed on the spindle label), you can do a "best" quality label in about 18 minutes instead of 25. I just bought a box of DVD's so I can't swear to it but I've read on here that the extended contrast is about 31 minutes on a DVD but drops to about 25 on the 1.2 media (still faster than burning twice). Search for "lightscribe" and read up, there's more than you'll ever want to know here.
BTW, you are right, the lightscribe is a novelty right now (but a really cool one). If you are going to burn and label 200 DVDs, you can justify a DVD printer on the difference in disc cost plus get full color! I don't have a problem with the current media color (I have a BSEE from Purdue and the school colors are "old gold and black") but multi-color, pricing compatible with printable media and some serious speed enhancements are necessary before this is going to even come close to inkjet printable DVDs.