Australia should be perfectly fine with your climate for the Bridgestones but if you want to waste money that's entirely up to you. I think most of the problem with Bridgestones is forums like this. One person says they are rubbish then everyone jumps on the wandwagon. A bit like a pedal box, one person says they have a dull throttle response and all of a sudden everyone else does. If the Bridgestone wasn't a safe tyre then it wouldn't be allowed on a car and on actual fact they are an ok tyre.
Is it a waste of money to buy tyres befitting of the performance potential of the car because VW chose so poorly, or is it more of a waste to buy a GTI/GTD and then have to drive it like it's a 1.0TSI 85ps Golf S to avoid breaking traction frequently in every day situations, rather than just buying the S?
Your GTD came on better rubber than mine, and your PP's LSD reins in the tramping, but even then, having the R, I still felt poor turn in grip in the mildest of winter weather (slight slippage on a large roundabout at 11C, following behind a RWD BMW118d that skipped around at twice the speed I was doing).
It's not being a sheep to say Bridgestones are a very poor "premium" tyre, my opinions on them are based on frequently suffering poor traction on 3 VWs bought from new with them (including the MK7 GTD), and not suffering it on any of the other VWs I have had which came on different rubber. I don't know anyone else on here putting down Bridgestones that haven't also had them and experienced their shortcomings.
You admit yourself that at replacement time you won't be buying Bridgestones again. It's one thing to compare the Bridgestones to the best of the best and denigrate them, but when they are poor performers next to all of their peers, you're "making do" with something that is impeding the car's potential in performance and safety terms.
Look around on the German forums and you'll realise that VW don't put Bridgestones on German market GTIs or GTDs, I wonder why that is? They wouldn't put up with it.