[Quicksilver]

Define "soft compound summer tires".
Do you want R compound and are you willing to live with tire life of less then 10K miles (hard street driving and some Auto-X/DE)? It so the RA-1s are an incredible, virtually cycle proof, R compound tire. You can get the same compound on Nitto NT01s for less money but the huge treadblocks don't like rain. (I run NT01s...)

For most people an R compound tire means purchasing a new set every year or two and that is great for "gods own toy car".
If you need more life then get an ultra high performance street tire but be clear: This is a step down in performance from an R compound tire. If you don't like to lean on the tire pretty continuously this isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It is a personal choice which means very different things to different people.
(I have ultra high performance tires with sport springs on my Volvo wagon and Porterfield carbon pads on my crappy little pickup... We all want different things.)