Using 'cdrecord -prcap' I know that my cdrom has 6 write speeds. I also know this because launching gnome/nautilus had offered multiple choices for burn speed. Not anymore.

I tried reinstalling nautilus-cd-burner and that was not successful.

I had this problem once before and a hard reboot fixed the problem.

I have, however, tried a system restart again and it had no effect.

Failing an ability to regain different default speeds: what would be the command line for burning an iso at 4X?

I also tried Gnomebaker but I couldn't use Gnomebaker to create iso cd's.

cdrecord -v speed=4 dev=0,0,0 NAMEOFFILE.iso

Cdrecord is run as root user. The dev= parameter is obtained by running cdrecord -scanbus. See 'man cdrecord' for other options.