The weather is still unpleasant but as promised I did try it out today. Left velcro foot and right platform, only about a half hour's worth of riding. So here's the report, such as it is.

I admit, fredly novice that I am, that I've never used clipless so I don't have much to compare against but I did enjoy the feeling of being solidly rooted to the pedal. I walked the bike up a muddy embankment before starting off, while wearing the foot velcro. On an easy brisk cadence it does feel like I'm getting more out of the stroke, more circular kind of effort. There was no slipping or accidental disengaging, pretty solidly connected. You have to be pretty deliberate to get your foot off. That's the good news part.

Pulling off feels like your feet have been sucked down by a foot of mud, kind of weird and slow. Charging ahead and pulling your feet up, I don't know. How hard do you normally pull, when you're doing that? It seems like I could only get a fraction of the force on the up stroke compared to the down, but pulling up quickly - to me, unnaturally quickly - I could hear the ripping sound. Someone with piston legs would rip right out, might be a deal-breaker there. I also detoured to one of my favorite short, steep hills and chugged up it. It was also a test of my brakes and gearing on my new build, which passed (yay). But anyway I tried pulling up while standing as someone mentioned and frankly I didn't get it. Maybe with both feet anchored I'd get a rhythm but I wasn't able to competently test with this technique.

Regardless of the defects I think I'll rig up the other pedal and roll with it for awhile.