CapriRacer, that is very understandable in DirtyApe's situation and I feel the pain!
Depending on the level of tires and vehicle, the owner needs to make a conscious decision on an installer when making these tire choices.
I too have listened to others complain when making $5,000 tire/wheel choices for a Porsche even though the tires/wheels were Road Force Balanced! It just happens sometimes, it's sad to say!
I've been pretty lucky thus far by buying online and having W*M install my tires. But, the tires that I am buying are standard touring replacement tires and I stay with the highly rated tires in my size(s)
I empathize with DirtyApe. I have purchaced tires localy in the past(til ~10 yrs ago) from local or national chains and have had the same balancing issues as DirtyApe. I have also purchaced wheels/tires packages from one of our favorite online tire stores(held in high regard here at BITOG) and too have had issues with balance. In either case, I had extra running around to do to get the balancing issue fixed. Even if I had to pay another installer their price to fix the problem, I still saved lots of money overall when buying online!
Like I stated, I'm in a good position with all of our tires in terms of their size(mostly 16"). So we have a nice variety of highly rated tire choices available at reasonable prices.
I'd hate to think about buying expensive 2**/45 or 35/18's or larger and have balancing issues.
Actually after reading through the post for DA's Potenza's and selling the Dunlop's, it seems as though DA has some room to work with to get the tires balanced in trems of cost.