Okay... start with the good news. Amazon did ship the correct disks. Here are what the Verbatim DataLifePlus Azo packing and disks look like. You'll see the proprietary recording dye mentioned on the back.
ImgBurn verified them to be the Mitsubishi Chemicals variant I was hunting. Supported write speed options stayed the same so assuming that's tied to my drive vs the disks.
Unfortunately no luck on 10x or 24x burns (min & max options I have). I think I have narrowed down the issue to my disk drive. After reading a ton of threads out there, it seems to usually be 1 of 6 issues:
1. CD-Rs > tried multiple, bought best rec I could find
2. Burn Speeds > tried multiple
3. Bad bin/cue > tried multiple, even on person rips that work in emu & POPS
4. Mod/Method > tried mod chip & AR/Goldfinger method on 2 systems
5. Software > using ImgBurn, seems to be the preferred and proven
6. Disk Drive > seems to be my lone option left to try
@Ziggy,
Think I'm going to order the $20 DRW-24B1ST today. Not a bad investment either way.