Sure I have, and I see multiple types of video formats, some are better than others, but you walk into a clients house and say here is the mpv, or divx, or avi, or any othe of a gazillion downloadable media types and say play it on your TV. It's simply not going to happen in most cases however now you give them a DVD or a Blu-ray and most can instantly view it on their TV. Simple as that.
There is a place for no optical drives in portables, they are netbooks and mac air. A Mac Book PRO with now optical drive is for my a Mac Book Air on steroids. Which like I said is fine if thats what you would like but its simply not a PRO in my view. Very nice laptop, very nice screen and specs, a bit over priced for what your getting but thats not unexpected from Apple, but the lack of optical drive is disturbing.