You'd really need to be a little more specific about what you mean by "lifting" shoes. A lot of times skate shoes are used by lifters, and those work pretty well as long as your platform pedal has a decent flat platform. There are other lifting shoes with a high heel in the back that probably wouldn't work as well because they're designed to tilt your foot forward.

Chrome makes shoes specifically for biking (on platforms with no clips), and while I've only used them once so far they've worked well for me. They're the "pedal series":
Urban Bike Sneakers | Pedal Bike Shoes | Chrome Industries

Among skate shoes, some have a very very loose sole and others have a somewhat-stiffer sole - the one with the somewhat stiffer sole work better in my experience. You can tell just by trying to bend the shoe by hand.

There have been a number of studies and experiments that have shown no efficiency in using clipless, like here's the first one I have a link to - the rider feels like they're going faster with clipless but measurements show they are not -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNedIJBZpgM

These aren't done in real world conditions, so there's still some debate over whether clipless gives an advantage in certain niche situations (sprinting, uphill, etc), but it strongly suggests that clipless is somewhere between no additional power and only very slight increase in efficiency. Either way not having to carry and change shoes at the end of the ride more than makes up the time for any casual riding. The main advantage of clipless is keeping your foot solidly connected to the pedal at very high rpms.

I've tried wearing around shoes with cleats before - my feet hurt at the end of the day in a way they didn't with regular shoes. I definitely prefer shoes with no cleat if I'm going to be walking around all day.