Well, if you've read the thread where I describe how I killed my FX-8350 with high temps, then you at least know what TIM to absolutely avoid - Thermaltake TG-2
However, its more expensive brother, the Thermaltake TG-1, came out at the opposite end of the charts from the TG-2 (that's a very good thing). I think it's about $13 a tube, so it's right up the price you quoted.
Frankly, when it comes to top-tier pastes, most reviews and round-ups have the top-tier pastes all within 1-3C of each other. See
this roundup done by xbitlabs, for example.
Also, HardwareSecrets does a routine round-up of thermal pastes. They even include some goofy ones like butter, chocolate, toothpaste, etc. Google "hardware secrets thermal compound roundup" and you'll get results for the various months in which they update their roundup with new additions.
As for best application method, in my experience it varies with the cooler base and with the paste itself.
Some pastes have a very thick consistency that mounting pressure alone won't really spread them too much, so you do have to spend a bit more effort than just putting a grain of rice-like amount in the middle and then mount the cooler (Tuniq TX-2 was like this; it's a bit thick, better to spread it a bit before mounting, but not necessarily covering the entire IHS).
Other pastes aren't very thick and are very spreadable, so up to you if you want to bother or let the mounting pressure do it in. Most Cooler Master pastes are like this (such as those grey pastes included in their nice bang-for-the-back coolers, the Hyper 212/+/Evo line, and the white, almost powdery Cooler Master HTK-002), you can easily spread them around but you don't really have too, good mounting pressure will spread them well enough.
Of course, that also depends on the cooler base. Coolers now have a flat base are the easiest. I'm not a fan of the warped-base (convex), but even these are friendlier to spreading thermal paste compared to direct-heat-pipe based coolers. There are gaps beside each heat pipe (such as in the original CM Hyper 212+; not sure if all evolutions of that still sport the same direct-heat-pipe contact base), and it will never spread the paste by itself through mounting pressure. You need to fill up those gaps first with your paste, and then try a line method on the CPU if it works ok. Personally, I just spread it on the CPU myself if I could, as thinly as possible.
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