Many prefer LG drives as most reliable. In general avoid panasonic, pioneer, matshita and sony. 8)
I've used Lite On drives for years and have had great luck with them. I currently have two Lite On IHBS-112-04 drives and both are excellent at ripping. I have an ASUS USB 2.0 external Blu Ray burner that I use with my laptop and it does a really good job.
I have only one LG and thats a LG BH12LS30 I believe, and that's in my old computer I gave to my daughter. Rips slow, writes slow, got it on sale thank goodness. After that one, I always considered LG Blu Ray burners to be over rated, but that's my opinion.
Most likely, you purchased a discontinued model. Do a google search on the model number. Also, you mentioned that you installed the LG BD drive on an older computer. That could be another reason why it rips & writes slowly. I have an older LG BD and it has no problems with ripping or writing. I, also, have an older computer, but the only slowness I have is when I'm backing up my DVDs & BDs. I know that the slowness is from my CPU power. IMHO, Lite On drives are good (I use to have two of them), but the LG drives last alot longer and are more dependable. 8)