The best transports produce a data stream with less error, or jitter.the above statement is the flaw in your thinking, Lloydc (the jitter part is right tho'). The fact is that even the $35 el-cheapo DVD unit from Walmart will read a disk with zero errors (just like the transport for a $10K CDP). As Al indicated in this thread & Kijanki in another similar thread, these drives are packed with some very effective error correction algorithms that will zero out any errors within a certain range - 2.5mm to 8.5mm as indicated by Kijanki. So, bit stream is going to be perfect with cheap or expensive drives.
Where the expensive drives win big-time is their ability to read the disk with zero errors and at the same time not corrupt the power supply voltage during the read, minimize jitter, prevent disk wobble, etc. All these fine attributes of expensive drives are valid when you are playing back a CD real-time - these attributes prevent "digititis" in the listener.
These attributes are less meaningful when your playback method is computer audio. You've already ack that you understand this bit so no need to repeat. In computer-based audio, you worry about other things: disk speed, ensuring that you bypass KMIXER in Windows, ensure you are doing WASAPI in Win7, USB-to-SPDIF/XLR conversion, etc, etc.