Money is going to be tight with the purchase of the new carb. My question is how much performance am I going to lose going with a cheaper paddle. ala Sand Devils, Dune Hoppers, Sand Sharks?

I've got Sand Sharks on the 350X, had Kenda Trakkers on my DS, and now run Haulers exclusively and the difference is night and day. Get the cheapies and lose the drags against inferior bikes, get the Haulers and rejoice! Extreme haulers are reinforced for more durability over regular haulers.
Now since I have the cheapies too, and have ran most all of them one time or another, I can honestly say that Vee paddles are more fun for me to play around on and trail ride the sand trails, but their hill climbing traction and drag traction suffers quite a bit, and its harder to ride the sides of bowls because the ass of the quad wants to slide downhill as you go along and you find yourself making big arches instead of straight lines along the razorbacks.
If a Vee is what you want though, for super quick spins and tight u-turns on sand walls, then the Sand Skates and Edges have much better traction than the sharks, trakkers, etc., but also cost as much as haulers. Now I'm not trying to slam any of the cheaper tires, 'cause like I said I have them on another bike, but they're just not it for the DS.

From what I have seen of the extreems they are well worth the money. The will be my next sand tire right now I have stager cut STU paddla bats and they were quite pricy but hook up great also.

I bought cheap paddles for my DS, then I spent a weekend trying to lift the ass of a DS up out of shallow holes it dug in the sand. The next time I showed up at the dunes, I had a set of Competition cut Sand Skate I (V-Shape) paddles, and spent the entire weekend going wherever I wanted. I could even start from a dead stop, in very soft sand uphill with the better tires. With the cheap tires, Unless I was on packed sand, I couldn't sit on the bike and get moving on level ground. I had to put it in gear, get it moving then hop on the ATV - that sucked.

I may have the opportunity to get some slightly used edges for a good price. What do you guys think of those? I think that the v's will fit my riding style a little better. I'm not all about the drags. I just don't want to get whoopped all day long in the drags to the big boys. It'll kill my self esteem. Don't get me wrong I will drag my fair share.

I figure I'll start to save up for the extremes to have laying around as a spare.

Edges get surprisingly good traction - eRAPTOID has 10 paddle edges on his Raptor - they slide really well, are fun to play on, but also get good striaght line traction and do much better side-hilling than sharks and trakkers. I think if I was to get a vee, it'd be them, but I haven't actualy ridden with the Skates to know which is better.