New Macbook Pro does not possess a disc drive. WHAT.

Apple is moving away from discs. Cutting drives in their hardware, no longer distributing iDVD, no installer discs, etc. Why do you need one when you can buy and download all the software you need from the Apple Store, and buy all your music and movies from the iTunes Store? If you want to install third party software on installer discs then it's only you to blame. Home videos? No problem. Share them with your great grandparents online, and of course they know how to use a computer, right? 😢

Sharing DVDs or CDs with Remote Disc - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1131

or buy a Superdrive

For those people with other Macs, you can use the other Mac's optical drive if you have a CD/DVD to read. If the Macbook with no optical drive is your only Mac, you may wish to buy their external USB Superdrive that has been recently enhanced to support DVD-Audio as well:

http://store.apple.com/ca/product/MD564ZM/A

Of those two USB plugs on your DVD drive, one is just for additional power. With the MacBook Pro, you won't need to plug in that additional plug.

Do you mean a television style DVD drive, or a computer style?

yep, just use the usb plug that has the thicker cable.

My opinion, is that it is a mistake to assume that everyone will want to email files or store them in the Cloud. Size limitations and security issues abound.

Clients want DVDs, more and more want BluRays. They are still a solid storage medium/transport medium to say nothing of the billions of albums and movies out there. Not that many people can actually use a thumb drive to watch something on their TV, though the number is growing. DVDs rule the roost and will for some time.

But you can certainly get an external drive. The bigger faux pas, in my view, is the dropping of authoring support. No one else with a track record of offering pro software has dropped DVD authoring support. Now, that's not what iDVD is, but is that day coming for FCP, for example? Hope not.

Not sure how to take that.

Buy everything in the app store where apple controls pricing.