No offense, but neither the Paradas (either Spec), nor the Ecsta 712s are going to be considered real performance tires. They may sell 'em that way in the tire shops, but about the only place where they might outperform a real performance tire would be in tread life.
I've used the Ecsta 712s on a previous car, and I'd rank them right up there with the Dunlop SP5000s I put on my wife's Accord - they're round, they're black, they hold air, they'll last for awhile, and they're cheap. Notice that I didn't mention performance in there at all.
If you want some real perforance, and are willing to give up some tread life and accept a very minimal increase in ride harshness in exchange for amazing dry traction and very good wet traction, then the Falken Azenis are probably your best bet. Let me put it this way - there is a reason why every Miata except one running on street tires at the last autocross was on Azenis - they really are that amazing. In fact, the fastest Miata of the day overall was on Azenis, beating out five Miata on real race tires.
If you're not interested in going to that extreme, then I would suggest reading up on the following tires at Tire Rack and the "Tires & Wheels" section of the pointy board (miata.net), and then deciding which one to try:
Goodyear Eagle F1 GS-DE
Toyo T1-S
Kumho Ecsta MX
Yokohama AVS ES-100
Bridgestone Potenza S-03
These five tires have different strenghts and weaknesses, but they do all share one common trait - they are real performance tires, designed to maximize dry and wet traction and provide the driver with the feedback he needs. Form follows function with these tires (as it should be), instead of function following form (as it does on the Paradas, where the primary design goal was to have "a cool-looking tread pattern".