Lee> CDParanoia came with the distro, but I am
  Lee> frankly offput by

Are you sure you mean cdparanoia? Do you mean cdrecord?
cdparanoia is used for ripping tracks off audio CDs,
but cdrecord is used to create CDs from a master, and
also to record audio CDs.

  Lee> 1). Having to log in as Root to use the thing

Just use su. No need to login separately.

  Lee> 2) Having to create a separate partition and
  Lee> save an image of the CD therein prior to burning
  Lee> it.

Unless there is something I don't understand about it,
I don't think you can get around that.

If you're recording data backups, then you have to
create an image in iso9660 format file system, then
copy that to the disk

If you're talking about copying audio CDs, I still
don't think there's a way around ripping the tracks and
then copying them up.

If I'm wrong I'd love to know how to do it.

See my next note.

-- 
Lynn David Newton
Phoenix, AZ