It would be a shame for this thread to become a LITEON bashing…
@pcdoc - If it can make you feel any better, what you describe is poor quality control and concerns many of the things sold today on the market. Companies in general (not just liteon) are cutting corners, and production quality is taking a hit ! You can’t blame LITEON, as I have built PCs for many friends and colleagues around me and I have seen similar problems with other burners, yes even plextors. Someone I know with a PLEXTOR and another one with NEC (the drive people praise) have had similar experiences. As to my personal experience, my 811S worked out of the box - I have HAD my share of frustrations, and yes the drive does not produce the best burn strategy however, there are enough tools to make the drive a top drive. I use my 811S in a business and have burnt hundreds of DVDs and have yet to experience ANY problem. It is odd that you have gone through 10 drives
Simply suggestign people to get BenQ in my opinion is not good advice - maybe you should get your son a NEC or PIONEER, maybe you do not have any luck with LITEON, as far as I am concerned they are good drives when using the right media, and since I can get quality media for cheap then I stick to LITEON.
You have a waranty ? Make use of it. In some cases you can go back to your store and exchange it, or call up LITEON and give’em CRAP, tell’em to do a reverse RMA, and send YOU a drive along with a pre-paid box for return, as you don’t have to pay for their bloody mistakes… (better stop here now) 
The whole point being, you will see users bash Benq, you will see users bash PIONEER, you will see bashing in even the best products. Check your power supply - from experience I have seen poor/failing power supply in people’s systems that killed hard drives and burners… You might want to look at the cause…maybe you did end up with a bad batch of liteys
Maybe it’s time to buy a few lottery tickets and use those numbers, maybe you have better luck there.