Thanks everyone. As I expected, some interesting suggestions. I took another look at speedplay, and noticed that they have a 'walkable' cleat now. Interesting. I don't need to hike, but would like to be able to walk through my apartment and down stairs. I fear my penchant for occasional gravel grinding rules it out however, as that cleat would be full of mud in no time.

I actually forgot about Time. I installed a lot of these back in the early days of clipless when Look and Time were the only game in town. Am looking at them again now. Not sure about the plastic bodies. In retrospect Shimano's SPD was heavily influenced by the Time mechanism.

Double sided mtn spd pedals is what I've used before on 'road' bikes, and not ruling those out either because they are easy to get into and obviously do well on gravel.

Not new to cleats at all btw, as I spent years with Duegis (etc) and slot cleats before switching to clipless. But I took a few years off cycling, and lots of new stuff now.

Thanks again for the suggestions. It helps.