OK Here is the problem.... A firmware update was issued through software update that has resulted in the problems that, it seems thousands of MBP owners and Superdrive owners in general are having.
I have 7 Macs in total at home and in the office and the superdrive all seem to have developed the same problem. I have been all over the web, spoken to apple and got a similar list of fixes, clean the lens, flash the pram, reboot try better disks. None of these worked.
The big unanswered question for AppleCare was why would macs in 2 different locations develop the same problem at roughly the same time unless there was a common connection such as software update?
Having read a number of blogs it seems like the only root to success is to replace the superdrive.
http://www.richardmondello.com/2008/02/16/macbook-pro-matshita-superdrive-21-sol ution/
I'll be writing and e-mailing as Richard suggests to get the drives replaced and will be much more cautious with software update in future.
I would advise you all to start complaining to apple, print out all the blogs and posts of all the people who are experiencing the same problem. There are a lot of us and Apple should no longer be ignoring us.