I have to admit my desire to "keep it real" with bias ply tires fades away on the post wide whitewall, pre wide oval era of cars. My '63 Galaxie 500XL 406/4sp car, when it sees the road again, will be wearing 17" Torque Thrust II's and a big and bigger set of tires. I was actually looking at Nittos (They make a 275/50/17 that's about a match to a 275/60/15 in overall dimensions), but I'll probably end up with Goodyears, 225/55 and 255/50/17's.
Those blackwall and 1" whitewall 7.75-14's and the like just look spindly and lame on '62-'66 era stuff for the most part (Corvettes with their tiny wheelwells excepted). Low profile tires tend to drive more like bias plys (stiff sidewalls and all) so the experience isn't that different. Other than the fact that I should be able to take offramps 20mph faster [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/
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Bottom line is you buy what you like. If you look at cars at the shows with radials and you just can't get into it, you probably won't learn to. If you can't tell from 20 feet what kind of tires a car has, you don't need to worry about it- just order up some BFG T/A's post haste and start driving.