For the record, I have been in fact trying barefoot shoes alternatively for most of this year. Have 5 pairs already. But my plan is not necessarily to fully transition to barefoot shoes. As long as a shoe has enough room for my toes to not foot-bind my toes at all, that's a good enough shoe.
Though I do think barefoot shoes encourage a healthy modification of your foot-strike when walking, reducing/minimizing your heal-strike. But that is only part of it. I think shoes that allow for hard heal-strikes are still ok, as long as the shoe does not bind the toes whatsoever.
So I'm considering a rather interesting fun project: building casts of my feet. Getting some alginate and casting plaster soon. My plan is to make those casts standing with my full weight on my feet. Because the foot's shape changes considerably from a relaxed hanging position to a load-bearing one. And I want to cast them under load.
Not only under load, but with my toes properly spread out, so wearing toe-separators. Because my toes are still not fully spread out as they should naturally be, because of a life-time of wearing shoes with the typical toe-binding shapes.
So the plan? I will force these toe-separated casts with thick socks into my current shoes. If they don't fit, the shoes go.
If they fit, then I'll bring those shoes with those casts into them into an oven for several hours at 80-90 degrees, to deform the shoes accordingly.
If after such treatment the shoes do not properly budge, they go. They will be officially declared unwelcomed toe-binding devices. No thanks. Bye bye. I simply didn't know better back when I bought them.
So I have new criteria for all my future shoes, and this upcoming test for all my current ones.
Raul