With the clip style you don't have to lean over to unclip them, you just pull your foot upward then out. One thing about clip style, for the clips to work the way they were intended you have to buy special shoes that had a long grove or slot on the cleat that "clipped" onto the pedal cage; see: http://www.yellowjersey.org/cleats.html. If you buy the right shoe you don't have to cinch up the strap so tight that your feet fall asleep and turn blue! Now when I raced I did cinch them up snug, but I could still get my feet out if I wanted to by just bending over, as you mentioned, and hitting the lever.