When my Ibook shit the bed, I went back to my old G3 powerbook. The only item I really missed from the old ibook was the CDRW drive, so I dismantled the ibook and got the drive out.
The problem is, the ibook faceplate causes issues with the powerbook–it gets hung up on it. Getting the powerbook faceplace to work on it is going to require some surgery and I don’t want to do that in case I need to go back to the old drive.
So, is there a downside to just leaving the faceplate off? The bay the CD sits in is an expansion bay, so the rest of the laptop is protected against foreign object intrustion.