Another vote for the Sumitomos based on my discussions with others.
As for air pressure, Back in the 70s and 80s adding pressure increased performance by stiffening the sidewalls. On today's ties, the sidewalls are much stiffer right out of the box. Often, more pressure simply makes the tire contact patch "crown" and reduce the size of the contact patch. Don't just accept the standard wisdom. Apply stripes of white shoe polish running from the edge of the contact patch to about two inches up the sides of your tires. Drive the car in a parking lot hard until the front end plows or the rear end spins (or both). Then take a look at the shoe polish stripes. If they are not scuffed all the way up the sidewall portion, then add air. If they are scuffed only to the very edge of the contact patch, a change in pressure should be very slight, if at all. If the shoe polish is not scuffed at all, you may actually want to reduce tire pressure to get better traction.