Technically, that is a counter anecdote, but it may represent real data where you ride. Staying with personal experience, when I ride a racing bike there are almost always portions of the ride when I am at or near a maximal effort. I feel I benefit from clipless pedals, ymmv.

The only point of my earlier comment was to respond to the many folks who seem to need to tell those of us who use expensive shoes and clicky pedals that we are doing it wrong and have been brainwashed by those nefarious manufacturers.