Thanks Spinningwheel, I can see your point.
The reason for asking such a question was not to make any changes to old software, but to understand how things work. If I should guess I think that if the firmware is not up to date, only software like ImgBurn will do enough testing and send the right commands to the burner. If this is correct then buying a new burner with up to date firmware is likely to work on most software.
Anyway, I was just curious to learn since I have spent so much time in trying to understand what went wrong.
Thanks for your kind help.