This is the email that I sent to Tire Rack ...
"According to your definition, a performance winter tire should have better wet/dry traction and not as good snow/ice traction. According to the survey results, the Blizzak LM-60 has better snow traction and not as good wet/dry traction compared to the X-Ice Xi2 (a studless snow/ice tire). I understand that these results are based on customer reviews but it makes it very difficult to choose between these two tires. The size I am looking at is 225/50R18. The Michelin would of course be the X-Ice Xi3. Ultimately I am looking for better snow and ice traction, but the X-Ice seems to receive many negative reviews about its snow traction."
and this was their response ...
"When looking at tires on our site you should not really compare different types of tire categories to each other. This will give you inaccurate information. We design the site to compare tires in the same category. The performance winter tires are designed more for the sport performance vehicles. They focus on handling and less ice traction. If you want the best snow and ice traction then you would go with a stud less ice and snow. The trade off to the stud less ice and snow is on the dry days you do not get as good as handling response. They will feel a little like marsh mellows compared to a performance winter tire."
here are some more ratings from a Canadian online tire store ...
studless ...
http://winter-tires.pmctire.com/x-st...valuations.pdf
performance ...
http://winter-tires.pmctire.com/x-st...valuations.pdf