Bill in VA

I had many, many years or riding with toe clips and straps. The vast majority of those years were with dedicated cycling shoes, sometimes using slotted cleats, but more times without the slotted cleats. I spent more recent years using SPD cleated roadish-looking black MTB shoes that were great for riding and walking. Now I am back to toe clips and straps or platforms without clips. I was never a racer, but did like retention systems when I used them.

The single common requirement for me has always been the stiffness of the sole of the shoe for foot comfort. The various retention systems have advantages definitely, especially if you pull up and over on the pedaling, but for me the only constant in all the cycling shoes was the feature of a stiff sole. My favorite shoes were my ancient Avocet touring shoes from the early 1980s with shallow grooves in the sole for retention if using toe clips, and my sub-$100 Shimano SPD mountain shoes. Both were stiff and yet very walkable. In fact the Shimano SPD shoes were the first cycling shoes that I did not remove immediately after getting off the bike at the end of the ride. They were that comfortable. Now I am using MKS Sylvan Gordito pedals with no retention and Shimano flat pedal gravity shoes bought because they are lace-up shoes and will work with toe-clips if I want. I find those shoes have an almost identical feel and comfort as the Shimano MTB shoes. (Note: I have wide feet and have found the Shimano shoes to be pretty wide-foot friendly, but YMMV.)

In a nutshell, in terms of advancing the enjoyability of cycling, the two best buys I made were good shorts and good stiff shoes. Both were really, "why did I wait so long?" moments.

Troul in Post #59 does have a very good point. It also applies for toeclips and straps too as the average opportunist snatch and ride thief is not usually wearing clipless shoes, and with toe clips and straps the entry and scraping of the clips as they are hanging down is a possible deterrent, however minimal.