What you first heard about was the "DiscT@2" technology by Yamaha. Not quite the same though, while it was kinda neat, it only wrote simple stuff to whatever empty space was left available on the data side of a cd after you burnt your data to it. The lightscribe is pretty damn cool (so long as it being only grayscale doesn't bother you). Like another poster mentioned, it does indeed take quite a while if you're doing a very detailed full cd graphic, but you can do it anytime, it doesn't have to be immediately after burning your disc. You can even add stuff to one later. The media is a little more expensive, but then you don't have to pay for labels and excess ink cartridges either, so it's probably a wash cost wise. Plus it won't ever peel off (I don't guess it fades over time either).
I picked up the HP dvd740i model. 16X+-R, 8/6X+-RW, 8X+R DL and 4X-R DL. I haven't owned this one long enough to know how good a drive it will be, but my HP dvd420vi burner I purchased on a pricing mistake whim back when they first came out was the best optical drive I've ever owned. I don't even know how many spindles of dvds I've burnt through with it without a single issue, I'll just say it was abused. I've not yet found any Lightscribe dual layer media though, was kind of hoping there would be some available.