When I bought the car it had the original RF Bridgestone Duellers (20" staggered set-up). I swapped these out for Winter: Non-Run Flat Blizzak DM-V2 (20" squared set-up).
The Blizzak's feel very different--the ride is less harsh and the tracking is better.
However, the steering is equally light. By light, I mean the wheel turns very easily, the feeling is that you are gliding rather that getting a positive, responsive feedback back from the road. I didn't receive my PhD in automotive phenomenology, but that's how I experience it. It feels quite different from others cars I have driven, especially my wife's X1.
In an article from Car & Driver they put it like this: "EPS-equipped cars, we’ve found them lacking in feel, poorly tuned, and sometimes simply weird in comparison with the hydraulic-assist setups that have benefited from more than half a century of development. This matters because steering is the driver’s main line of communication with the car; distortion in the guidance channel makes every other perception more difficult to comprehend."
And, "Measuring what’s going on with the tires and the suspension indirectly amounts to intelligent guesswork, but it’s the best we have today to minimize EPS’s limitations. No wonder we found hydraulic better than electric assist in our subjective Feedback analysis."
http://www.caranddriver.com/features...n-test-feature