Yeah, I know someone else in the same situation with a Jetta... for as much money as she spent on her first set of replacement tires, she could have bought a nice 15" or 16" wheel of her choice and a good, reasonably-priced tire. It seems like once you jump to 17" or above, the price of wheels and tires goes way up, but there are lots of very nice 15" and 16" designs that are fairly cheap.

The 5lb/wheel, while it's possible to reduce the weight that much with higher-end wheels, probably wouldn't have enough of an effect on fuel savings to recoup the extra cost. It would probably be cheaper to remove ~35lb from the car elsewhere. Of course, reducing that unsprung weight would further improve the handling, so I'm not saying it's a bad idea at all, just that Honda probably decided against it for cost reasons. For their stock tires, they probably could get better handling with just a different tread-pattern, with the same low-rolling-resistance sidewall rubber.