This is my area of expertise,.. cheap affordable products with good quality.
I am a cheap old bastard.

Here is my list of (affordable) tires that offer excellent performance and value.

These are my top 4 favorite (low cost) tires.
Fuzion ZRi (Not the HRi)
BFGoodrich G-Force Sport
General UHP
Dunlop Direzza DZ101

I have personally tried all of these tires.

The Fuzion ZRi offered the best performance,.. excellent dry traction and great rain tire. But they wear out quickly. I average 20k miles with these tires.

General UHP tires lasted me the longest. They had the best wet traction but only so so dry traction. I usually get 30 - 35k miles on Mustangs with these tires and I have a set of 275/55 R20 tires with almost 50k miles on my truck now and they still have 40% tread left.
BFGoodrich G-Force Sport tires are as good as the Fuzions on dry streets but they arent as good in the rain. They are a noisy tire if road noise bothers you.

I've have had mixed results using Hankook Ventus tires. I got 2 tires for free from a friend and they were pretty good on the rear so I bought another pair new and they were'nt as good.
Ditto for Firestone Firehawk tires. The wide ovals. They do ok on the dry street,.. and you would think they would do well on wet roads with their tread pattern but they slip and slide a lot.

Tires I personally stay away from are Sumitomo and Kumho's. I have tried different tires from each and they all sucked.

I buy all my tires though TireRack.com. I bought my own tire machine for $250 and mount them myself. Most of the time I can get away with out balancing them. But sometimes I'll get a tire or 2 that bounce at speed and take them to get balanced. Usually less than $20 for all 4 if you dismount them from the car before you bring them.