"I'm sorry, but you don't think some time was put into the engineering of these "sponges" chosen for this shoe, you don't think someone putting in 8-12 hour shifts full time in ill fiting five year old shoes are doing a service to their body? There was an entire lightweight framework inside the shoe you must have missed in one of the photos. That is properly stiff and merits more of the cost on a ONE OFF R AND D PROJECT with practicality not it's objective. Argue with a Marathon runner about how bad it is for their body sometime, see what happens. Who are you?"