I would yes. I'd much rather pay £70 or so a corner rather than £25 quid a corner (for that is what rubber for my car costs), than be wishing I'd spent £70 a corner on tyres when I'm skidding towards something in the wet. Tyres are such a safety critical thing that I always buy them on experience and what my tyre place tells me gives the best wet grip. And there certainly are tyres where you get 50% more grip in the wet compared to some of the terrible cheap shit out there.
I'm not saying there aren't good cheap tyres out there, but there are plenty of bloody awful ones. I've bought tyres twice because I've put on cheapies and they had naff all grip FFS...