I hate that "supported drives" stuff too... I am not an expert, but any MMC-compliant drive should be basically supported, right?
Exactly.
I'll give you an example where Nero is stupid:
Recent NEC drives have all the same firmware bug with speed selection: There are 2 different ways to request all possible write speeds on the inserted disc. One of them is b0rked on NEC drives when DVD media is inserted.
A program could either have a workaround for this, or it doesn't. So a program should either show the list of possible speeds correctly on all recent NEC drives or on none of them. A program working correctly on a 2500A will also work properly on a 3500A, unless it is intentionally prohibited (like those Nero versions recognising the 2500A, but not recognising at all the 3500A!), for example in order to force the user to update, and maybe buy a new major version (nero 5->nero 6), once in a while.
DVD Decrypter, on the other hand, usually works with drives launched long after itself. An old 3.5.0.0 version will perfectly work on an LG 4163B. Only drives that have unknown firmware bugs and need new workarounds do not work. As a result, there was one version each few months...