I feel that. This is my first winter commuting, and I outfitted my ancient mountain bike with studded tires and bar mitts (even thought it wasn't my bar mitts vah--sorry!) and I've ridden it a bunch, but the past two weeks have been dry, if not always warm, and I've been riding my touring bike with the clipless pedals. It is a big difference. Of course, I'm in Pittsburgh, not Minnesota. High teens F. is as cold as it's gotten, and I've found that two layers of socks under my regular SPD shoes left my feet cold after my 1 hour commute, but not freezing. I was happy to get into the shower at work (high school gym), but it really wasn't bad.

So you just use the flat pedals in the winter? I use toe clips on my commuter bike with a pair of fleece-lined duck boots over wool socks and sometimes some synthetic socks under those. That seems to work, and the duck boots aren't clunky like regular hiking boots--they're streamlined and slick enough to slide over the metal scalloping of my pedals and into the clips without much trouble, especially if it's wet. It ain't like being clipped in, but I do get power on the upstroke, and think it's way better than flat pedals. I hate it when I miss sliding into the toe clip and roll over the pedal, scraping the clip on the ground--it's much easier to clip in with the SPDs--but again, it's better than nothing.

Just hope the nice weather holds up on my commuting days for a while.