Some software does occasionally come on CDs -- especially if you buy a camera, for example. However, there are usually workarounds. But if you really need to read a CD/DVD, you will need to connect a USB-optical drive.

That issue, however, is separate from having SSD storage. My laptop (a vaio) has an SSD drive and I love it -- prices are falling, but it is pretty pricey. One thing that put me off the MBA (other than it being a mac) was there was no option to get a bigger than 256GB hard drive. Although with affordable portable HDs that isn't a huge issue, it did put me off.

tb