I would honestly focus on finding the best laptops for the task first, and an optical drive second. Unless there's a specific I-absolutely-need-this reason, of course.
It's simple: there's a very real chance you won't need that optical drive (or even the bay it occupies) a year or two from now. If you get an external optical drive and realize you don't need it that much later on, you can leave it at home. However, getting an integrated optical drive means you're saddled with that bulky design for the rest of the laptop's life, even if you replace the optical storage with a hard drive or SSD.