I second the tibia protection. I was just dicking around going to get my son from school and got a bit of air coming off one of the dirt roads here and had a pedal slip. My weight never transferred off the other foot - which meant I hammered the pedal into my shin. Didn't fall, but ended up with 3 nice bleeders on a well tattoo'd leg.
I'm riding on some **** permanent pinned blocks of iron, but intend to put straitlines on my next FSR/HT setup. My shoes piss me off because they're Globes I use for longboarding. The pattern on them is designed for footbraking - not sticking well. So they suck, ultimately, for the kind of riding I've been doing lately.