Unfortunately, it's hard to test these things objectively. Reviews are all over the place. One person's beloved tire is another person's trash.

Quality doesn't seem to correlate with satisfaction, except that people who shell out a lot try to justify doing so.

You keep a tire for a long time, and in that time, many models go out of production and new ones replace others, possibly including the tires you're on.

I avoid the super cheap stuff.

Some of the expensive stuff justifies the price, but how do you know? A wholesaler I trusted told me that I would surely be satisfied with the Schwalbe Stelvios he sold me. He was right, but I still feel like I got lucky.

Other than that, see what Al1943 wrote.

The good news is that it is a competitive industry, which leads to constant improvements.