I'd gladly pay a little more fore each game if both the durability increased and the console became less likely to need repair. The cost of the console would also go down because it would need less hardware. The BR drive is what made the PS3 so expensive at launch. The 360's disc drive is notorious for scratching games if made before 2007. Why not use a flash card?
Also, have you noticed how cheap high-capacity drives are becoming? Yeah, they may retail for 10-20 bucks, but that's not what they cost to produce. The raw materials needed to make a flash card (a small circuit board, memory die, and plastic, copper) cost pennies--definitely under $5 each to produce. I wasn't suggesting we all go spend hundreds of dollars on a flash drive for each game.