I'm not an expert, but I don't believe so. Should you try and fix one that you already have? Yes! Using less is always the best option. Does it matter if one you buy for 20 bucks on ebay is refurbed or if there's some magic factory in a distant land cranking them out still? Nope, not as long as it works. And I don't think there's anything wrong with someone selling them either, although I do wish they were clearly marked as refurbished (and tested).
I remain hopeful for a plug and play ODE for the PS1 and other consoles with more tricky optical setups, and we're still comfortably set to have those before all of the drives fail for good.