Try Nero for your burns. And just about anything to play, I’m fond of Media Monkey though it’s more geared towards navigating your MP3 folder it does DVDs fine. both are free, and both are drastically more useful than anything MS has ever bundled.
Thanks but, I use Windows DVD Maker for authoring (menus, etc.).
I'm familiar with lots of players and burners. It's the authoring functionality that I'd need to replace.