I guarantee at one point you'll be on the road with your laptop and you'll end up with a CD/DVD to put into your laptop for whatever reason.
And you'll be like, "Dang, wish I had never removed it..."
Well, yes I'd happily bring along an external optical drive for these long trips or rare formal occasions. I've used my optical outside the house about 3x in the last year, and all were predictable events that I prepared for beforehand.