My luck don't seem to be changing... I got shipped a bad lens. Lets see how the replacement process goes.
My old lens would attempt to read true PS3 disc. All games I inserted and Netflix, but everything else (Music CDs, Bluray movies, Data disc, etc) would not read at all. The new lens I received would not even attempt to spin on any disc.
However I can say I know the ins and outs of this drive though. After opening it you need to realign the loading gears so that disc will completely load. I found that out the hard way, but after seeing the guts of it I think a tray drive is much less opt to failure. PS3 style drives has too many possible ways that I could fail IMO.