I recently went through the tire debate when a couple of 'cross tires of mine started to look a little ragged and I decided to replace them.

I tackled the problem by addressing the various qualities I thought would be an issue.

1) puncture resistance: This was pretty crucial for me, because I've gotten a couple flats on my way to work and been late. plus, it's just a pain to change a tire on the fly. I was getting pretty caught up in trying to find the most puncture resistant tire (the Conti Gator and gator toughskins seemed quite attractive), but I started getting a growing sense of futility of the search. any tire is susceptible to a puncture, and the only way to combat it is increasingly thick and heavy tire bands and inserts. My brother, who started commuting from the mtb scene, suggested using Stan's no-tubes, which is a latex based tire sealant, that he previously found to be marvelously effective in stopping flats on his tubeless tires. He's been running regular "tubed" commuting tires, and says he hasn't gotten a flat since he started 2 or three years ago. So I decided that would be my puncture resistance, and not to rely heavily on "puncture resistant" technology. The trick to running stan's no tubes in a tubed tire is to either get schrader tubes or get presta tubes with removable cores (Conti and Q-tubes make these, probably others), and inject the stan's into the tire with the $10 syringe they sell. All in all, minimal weight gain, durable solution and I haven't had a flat yet (knock on wood).

2) tread- After riding on cyclocross tires for 8 months, I decided that a tread is not essential for road commuting. I originally thought I'd be commuting through parks and dirt paths on my commute, but that turned out to be not the case. I probably would've stayed with treaded tires, but I never find the need to traverse dirt.

3) size- I have commuted on 23s and 32s, and honestly, I'm not totally convinced there is an astounding amount of a difference (althought there probably is some). I feel more comfortable with bigger tires: the wheels seem more stout, they seem to tackle bumps a little better, I have less heartburn over potholes and curbs because I'm not as worried about a pinch, and they do seem to absorb a little more of the road. That said, the main advantage of larger tires seems to be that they can be run a slightly lower pressures for a softer ride and more traction without risking a pinch flat as much. I prefer to keep my tires maximally inflated (110psi on my 28s) because I want a quick ride and I don't want a pinch flat, so the ride quality is only slightly improved over the 23s I ran when I first started commuting. As far as speed and keeping up with riding buddies, at least for tires at or below 32, I don't think that the tires will be what hold you back. I've been crushed by dudes on knobby tired mountain bikes, and I'm pretty quick.

4) durability- I figured I'd try a high quality tire. the performance brand road tubes I had bought previously didn't last more than 6-12 months, (which is decent) so I wanted to see if I could get more bang for my buck. Schwable has a good rep, but I had done a lot of research on the Conti gatorskins before I found out about stan's notubes, so I felt more inclined to stay with the Conti scene. As far as the gatorskins specifically, they seemed exceptionally durable, but there were a couple of reports of sidewall blowouts, so I decided on the Conti 4 seasons

All in all, I went with the Conti 4 seasons 700x28c, kevlar bead, with ultralight q-tube presta (removable core) tubes and stan's notubes on the inside. This set-up has been great in the 2 months I've been running it, no flats on some sketchy streets, good handling, great braking (I can't get these things to skid when I brake hard, whereas my old cross tires skidded like crazy), good rain performance, lightweight and reportedly durable. I found a sale on e-bay, so I paid about $45 per tire, instead of the $80 or so that they retail for.