Hi again,
You can get your Messiah 2 chip supplied and fitted by Charlie_ps2 or Dust2Dust and they come very highly recommended by their customers.
YES, the Messiah 2 DOES boot CD-R directly - infact the Messiah 2 direct boots EVERYTHING you put in it!!!
That has to be worth the extra money in my opinion. Plus in relation to your other question, If you buy a DVD-ROM drive then you WILL be able to copy DVD's with your CD Rewriter but it will involve ripping them down to fit. Remember, A PS2 DVD can hold 4.7GB of data whereas a CD can only hold 700MB so if you are going to do this then you need to research a little on it. Most rip kits these days are very good but you do get the odd one which will just burn a coaster (A copy which will not work). However, with an educated guess you will be able to tell whether the kit will work or not after you have done a couple. You will be best off by getting a rip kit from a well know ripper, (someone like Kalisto) and these can be found a plenty over at the superlinux website. I will tell you how to get there: Go to
www.ps2ownz.com then, from here go down the affiliates menu (Bottom left of the screen) and find Superlinux.
This means you should avoid coaster rips. Most kits are what as know as 'One Button' ripkits which basically means put an original in one end, read the disc, come back a few hours later and you have an image ready to be burned onto CD. Also, instead of missing out on films and cutscenes in games (which is a common problem with ripkits) people have now started to split games to multiple CD's so none of the game is missed. You just have to change the discs over at a certain point that's all. The only real problem with ripkits these days is the fact that they are extremely hard on the mechanics of the laser arm assembly and are thought to wear out the laser mechanics quicker. Anyway, that should answer your questions, if you need any more help, don't hesitate to ask...