SATA optical drives are now key. As far as SATA storage devices go, only SATA hard drives exist at this time. There are no SATA optical drives (CD and DVD readers / recorders) -- yet. Once there are SATA optical drives on the market, then the reason for having parallel ATA ports on the average Joe's new mobo will start to quickly diminish and the age of SATA will truly then be ushered in.
SATA optical drives aren't here, but they ARE COMING. Probably by the end of 2003, there could be a SATA optical drive or two on the market. Philips has already shown a SATA DVD+R/W unit, so there is definitely movement on the SATA front. SATA optical activity will definitely have to occur in 2004.
It's hard to say what all the bargain basement CD/DVD-ROM manufacturers are up to in regards to the conversion to SATA. I would have though that a Ben-Q, Lite-ON, or A-Open would have by now had a "flagship" product using a bridged SATA --> PATA interface, but my guess now is that they may be considering a fully native SATA interface -- presumably in 2004 when more SATA mobos are shipped.
SATA removable magnetic storage (Zip, tape, etc) will eventually show up (2004/2005), unless cheap flash memory ("USB pen drives") take over in a huge way or that truly-inexpensive and expendable "plastic memory" becomes a commercial reality, or removable magnetic goes exclusively external via USB2/Firewire.