I actually think the stock Continentals that came on my 19" sport tires were quite good, I replaced them at about 19k miles and they had plenty of tread left so I sold them to a TMC member for $350.
I wanted to go wider and chose the Continental DWS06 in a 255/40/19 and the difference is night and day, WAY better handling with the wider tire and higher load range, more comfortable ride and better wheel protection with the larger sidewall, speedo reads spot on instead of a little fast, only drawback is at 19k miles I was at 248 wh/mi and the new tires with 14k miles on them are at 267 wh/mi or about a 7 to 8% range hit.