Another important feature to consider is the tyre's Rim Protection.
Some of the tyre companies are pretty poor with this. Continental comes to mind. We have these as summer tyres on our Mercedes. It is a good tyre which sadly happens not to protect the wheel rims suffeciently.
The Bridgestones have excellent rim protection. However, they are lousy in the wet, noisy and have a rough ride.
I have nearly decided to purchase the Goodyear Eagle Asymmetric 2 tyres for my 18" Monza Shadows. At present it is shod with Bridgestone Potenza 050A tyres which I don't like for the reasons above. I've only done 3.2k miles and want to be rid of them.
My winter tyres are the Michelin Pilot Sport PA3s which are 'W' rated and cost an arm and a leg, about £246 per corner.
I will stay clear of Pirellis as I have no intention of aquaplaning in the wet. Every car I had with these caused this to happen. It was quite unnerving at the time.
It therefore seems to me that one can't go far wrong with tyres from Michelin, Goodyear and Continental, all of which are Premium Brands.
As an aside, there are 6 Premium Brands: Bridgestone, Continental, Dunlop, Goodyear, Michelin and Pirelli (in alphabetical order).
In order of market share: Bridgestone, Michelin, Goodyear/Dunlop, Continental and Pirelli
Last bit of information: Continental are revising their entire range of summer tyres soon, so these would also be worth waiting for.