BCCHardware has put together a review of Plextor's new 18x DVD±RW, the PX-760A. Here's what they had to say about the world's first 18x DVD writer:
Plextor is a leader when it comes to optical drives. They haven't always been the first to adopt new technology or produced the fastest drives, but they are committed to quality. The PX-760A is an attempt in the right direction, but I believe it falls a little short as they reached too far. 18x writing offers very little performance advantage over a good clean 16x write, and the potential for errors is greater as the spindle speed must increase. That being said, the drive burns very quickly with a very low error count at 18x when using Verbatim 16x DVD+R media. However on other media, the drive produces more PI errors that I'd like to see - even at slower speeds.
If you'd like to read more, the entire review can be found here.