As you're beginning to see from this thread, tire conversations and recommendations often get long, hot, and bothersome.
As noted above re: wheel spin, tire compound is very important when it comes to characteristics. The OEM tires are summer-only tires, for instance. In cold, or cold with snow/ice, the tires are about as grippy as ice skates because of the effect of the cold on the tire. Given that I see you live in Gaithersburg, I'm going to suggest that if you're not interested in a high-performance summer tire for summer-only use, which would perhaps necessitate the purchase also of winter tires (in a place where winters are generally not too terrible, at least not for long, but there certainly is a winter), you consider some good all-seasons. Many people find the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S a very good choice. It's not terribly loud, but gives good performance and wear across the board. (Make sure you look at the all-season variant; Michelin also makes Pilot Sport summer performance tires.) Several other brands also put out good A/S tires.
For summer and performance use, many like a wider tire, but that's not always a good choice for winter use. In fact, if going through snow, a taller (higher sidewall), slightly skinnier tire has advantages in getting down to the road surface. (For instance, I run 185/60/15s for winter for just this reason. I go down to a 15" wheel [ensuring proper backspace for clearance] to try to keep overall diameter about the same as OEM.)
If I were living in your area and had no plans to autocross or do track days, etc., I would almost certainly choose something like the Michelins I mention above as my sole tire, running them year-round. I would probably stick with OEM sizing, perhaps considering 205/45, but I see little need for 215s or more. And note: if you increase both width and sidewall height, the chances of getting some rubbing in the wheel well increase quickly. There's not a great amount of space under there as is. Especially if you drive the car hard at all, diving into corners, etc.
I hope this was helpful. Please understand that this is simply my opinion, based on some (I hope reasonable) assumptions and basic tire knowledge.