"Thoughts?" I have read your first post. Have you been to the website of Tirerack?? First search for tire categories; read the description of each category and decide which best fits your requirement. Then choose a tire from that category: Track only; Street and track, Extreme Performance summer, Max Performance, Ultra High, etc >> With your wife driving the car you may want to consider something that is more quite than the high end dry road grip tire, which I doubt you will be using to it's full capabilities on your daily drives. The Potenza and the Ventus you mentioned are both direction treads. You will not be able to rotate them side to side which means you are less likely to get as much mileage from them as similar asymmetric designed tire.The nitto you mentioned looks prone to hydroplaning more so than the others. If you purchase those you will definitely need to go slow in the rain.