After 9,000km it looks like the Bridgestone is at least half worn, maybe more. My riding is unfortunately mostly to work and all upright on the highway at 70mph, I'm happy to sacrifice a little grip to gain better wear.
Any suggestions?
And no, Buddha, I don't want to buy a rock hard Cheng Shin rim protector that's been sitting in a junkyard unused since 1972!!!!

I run Kenda K671's on my bike.  before you ask, NO they're not cheapo chinese junk.  yes they're inexpensive(I paid $118 shipped for both tires)  but they're very good.   my set has some pretty good grip and I've logged a bit over 1100 miles on them so far with no signs even of wearing.  I expect them to last roughly 7-15k depending on how I ride.

Thanks for the tip Bob, sounds like they'd be great on a dollar per mile basis.

I bought a Kenda for my front tire thinking it was going to be a peice of crap and to my surprise, after 1500 miles, almost no wear and fairly sticky for the $45 I paid.

The Kenda tires are OK, I put a K671 on the back of my CM400 once and my current 02 GS came with a K657 rear that would have gone about 10k miles but I put on my AV45/46 radials that spring before it was used up.

My current Avon Roadriders look like a much better deal.  Got almost 10k miles on the rear and it looks like they will go 13-14K miles and they cost only a little more than the Kendas.  I used the 110/80 and 140/70 size Roadriders and son JP used 110/70 and 130/70 Roadriders and got about 13k miles from the rear with a lot of freeway commuting included.

My all time milage winner was the Dunlop K491 touring tires I used on my 400-750cc Hondas getting 25-30k miles but I wasn't happy with the handling in the mountain twisties of the one I put on the 97 GS.  I thought the Metz 130/90 ME88 handled about as good as the original BT45 and it gave about 17k miles.  A 140/80 ME880 should do better.

Tires I've used on the GSs, I have about 63k miles on the 02 GS now:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v443/jcp8832/GS500tirelog.jpg

a friend of mine runs mezler M3's and got 13k on his last set on his sv650

BT45 for sure

tip:  No more smoke shows!