You can get very good tire performance with long life these days. They don't even cost that much. It's just most people buying tires don't learn about tires, they simply buy whatever the store sells them. There's a lot of bad tires out there with bad performance and weak lifespan.

Michelin Defenders are warrantied for minimum 80,000 miles and are relatively low noise, good economy, good performance all around but especially good in rain. They cost $185/tire for a Honda Civic, which is a pretty normal price) (range for Honda Civic tires at Costco are $160-235, at TireRack $185/ea puts these about $25/tire over the median tire price for Honda Civic's)