You're not the only one holding out. I bought mine December 2010 and the new ones were released in February 2011. Follow this link and scroll down to the MBP to see the history. Odds are (and rumors have it) that a new release will be soon. http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro
Yeah, I like being able to watch DVD's and burn CD's too much to do without one. Of course you can get a separate drive but to me that defeats the purpose of a compact portable device int the first place. I guess the whole cloud based thing is being pushed more and more.
I like the idea of an optical drive as copy all of the families DVDs to the hard drive then to a flash drive for viewing on the tv or various other devices.