Lug sole shoes do NOT work well with toe-clips.

If you use metal toe-clips and no cleats, you might want to wrap some tape around the toe-clip where the toe of your shoe contacts it to prevent wear on the shoe. back in the day cleats were adjusted so that there was about 1/8" gap between thetoe-clip and the shoe.

I find that toe-clips help a LOT when climbing as I can pull up on the pedal. With toe-clips you can more easily pedal in circles too. That's done by pretending to scrape mud off your shoe at the bottom of each pedal stroke. That has the effect of pulling the pedal rearward making pedaling more efficient.

Cheers