I too was worried about the lifetimes of CDROM media since I use this
media for archival storage.  There is a good article about it at
www.itl.nist.gov/div895/gipwog/StabilityStudy.pdf

I went looking for "good" CDROMs and discovered that it is difficult
to find out exactly what the dye used in most CDROMs actually is.
Based on the NIST article, I was looking for phthalocyanine based dyes.
I finally found what I was looking for and what I thought was a good
deal at www.dsgi.com.  I bought 100 MAM-A Gold Lacquer CD-R disks for
$0.89 each.  With shipping it comes to about $1 per disk and seems
reasonable for an archival disk.

Of course I keep my archival copies in the dark and in a stable
temperature and humidity environment, which also happens to be a floor
safe.  I also make more than one copy of everything.  I still use the
cheapo $24/100 CDs for quick copies.

It remains to be seen whether any devices which can read this media
will still be functional 10 years from now, but that is a different
problem.  :)

Regards,
Phil Duclos