EDIT Travis, it's you? Heh, I pulled most of the below from the email exchange you and I had on this very question for these very tires for that very car last September!
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Now more than ever before, it is super important to buy tires very, very carefully. There is an enormous amount of garbage coming in from three-guesses-where, and much of it is just plain flat dangerous. There's always a sale of one kind or another going on, so unless you are ramen-three-times-a-day poor, you ought to be able to find an affordable reputable-brand tire.
As for the questions at hand: Kumho's reputation is decent and improving; like the entire Korean car and parts industry, their tire industry is flying along the learning curve at a pace that makes the Japanese of the 1970s and '80s look like slowpokes.
Seeking whitewalls means scratching probably 99% of the available tires off your list. They just aren't in fashion any more. There are the sky-high-priced ones from outfits like Coker, or you can go ahead and buy the (blackwall) tires that best match your needs and make 'em into whitewalls with this or this or these.
Me, I try to buy the best tires I can possibly afford. The payback is huge in safety, handling, durability, quietness, and ride. A good $50-$60 tire is the BFGoodrich Traction T/A (had 'em on my '71 Dart). A good $80-$90 tire is the Vredestein Quatrac 2 (have 'em on my '73 Dart and they are phenomenal, best tires I've ever owned). I don't have good luck with Goodyears or Yokohamas. I won't have Chinese-made tires if I can possibly avoid it, and even then, they must be the product of a big-name tire company, not a private-label no-name deal. When I bought the '73 last autumn, it had brand-new Chinese no-namers on them. They were reasonably quiet. They were black. They were round. They got replaced with the Vredesteins before I left Michigan with the car!
