I should say first of all I have not had a functional laptop in almost 2 years. And pretty much didn't use the one I had for at least 2 years before that. While I was still using it, the only time I ever used the optical drive was to watch dvd's. So essentially I never used the damn drive anyway and unless you have to do reinstall the operating system I have a hard time in seeing the utility of one these days. But you may use yours more often than I did for whatever you do.

Basically I see no difference between the two. It seems odd that an ipad is acceptable but an air is not, I would suppose that is a matter of perception or what you Want a laptop to be able to do vs what you Want a media device to do.