Well, I'm not going to question your choice of pedals, but I am going to question your buckling down of your toe straps. Why you do dis?

IMNVHO, the only time this should be done is when the toe strap is being used to secure non-foot things to non-pedal parts of the bicycle. For toe straps being used to secure feet to pedals, leave them free. Better yet, use toe strap buttons, which makes tightening them down, when you want to do that, much easier.

As far as efficiency goes, no study of which I am aware has ever shown a difference between any cycling shoe / cleat / clipless pedal configuration and any cycling shoe / cleat / toe clip / strap / pedal configuration, which is the only fair comparison. The reasons clipless pedals took over so quickly were: (1) Full retention without having to tighten your straps and occasionally getting tingly toes and (2) hands-free release at stop lights. Emergency releases didn't really enter into it... if you were gonna crash, you were gonna crash, and your feet were gonna do what they were gonna do, and it didn't really matter which setup you used.

--Shannon