I know they're not what they used to be, but I still went with a Plextor BD-R. I couldn't find much in the way of genuine compatibility concerns, so I went entirely on features. In particular I wanted to have Lightscribe (I actually use this for CD/DVD media, maybe BD someday...), and I also wanted the ability to permanently change the book type (bitsetting), for DVD media, which is doable, although Plextor now uses the Lite-On method for doing this.

The ability to change book type does improve DVD compatibility in not-to-common cases, so it's a plus, albeit a very minor one.

As for media, I always burn media at (at most) half the rated speed. So 12x media I'd burn at no more than 6x, etc. I've found this improves compatibility too. BD-R media is so damn expensive I haven't done much comparison shopping. I just use Verbatim inkjet printable media.