Interesting discussion about the aesthetic appearance of a tire tread pattern !! I had never even thought about it before. Kind of like buying shoes with the thought in mind about how the soles appear cosmetically. Never crossed my mind.
I can see that it might be important to the car show crowd. It seems that you can actually see the tread pattern when you have the hood up; or, I guess, if you turn the tires when you park at a show to show them off. My car usually is just parked after going in a straight line; so, I notice nothing but the first inch of the tread unless I am inspecting the tires.
Of course, I've done a couple of things to my car to get it more purty which would leave some others wondering, why bother?
Well... shoes don't have soles on top, tire tread goes all the way around.
Most Viper, and sports car owners in general, appreciate looks as well as performance. When it comes down to a decision on a particular part for one's vehicle, some lean towards the performance side, others lead towards appearance.
Personally, I hate making the freaking choice. Why can't the best performing part ALSO look good?
I'm not a tire engineer, so I don't know much about tread patterns in regards to performance. Perhaps that boring as hell family sedan tread pattern is the ideal structure for maximum performance from an all-weather tire.
Or, maybe Michelin just didn't feel like putting in the man hours to design a new tread pattern for a low volume tire.
The original Pilot Sports were dead ****, and I had no complaints about the performance. From what I've read, the PS2's are excellent tires, perhaps the best in class, from a performance standpoint, but they rank near or at the bottom in appearance. I can't think of a more boring looking tire in the Z-rated class.
Again, it might be a direct trade-off for performance. Maybe the ****, symmetrical design of the original Pilot Sport was specifically what made it a worse performing tire than the PS2. Maybe that boring family sedan tread pattern of the PS2 is specifically what makes it the best tire in its class.
If that is the case, I don't fault Michelin for targeting the performance crowd. Having said that, I just dropped my car off at DLM for some new shoes, and I went with the BFG T/A KDW, which from a performance standpoint is a slightly worse tire, but it's also a very good looking tire. They are also about $500 cheaper for a set of 4.
In my case, I'm willing to take a slight performance hit for a major appearance upgrade, as I wouldn't be taking either tire to its maximum abilities, anyway. I don't regularly drive over 180 MPH, and I don't take most corners at 50 MPH