If you think your feet "lift" the pedals, instead of the pedal lifting your foot, yes, you have a vivid imagination.

Take a bike out on a track for an hour with your feet "clipped in". Find the fastest cadence you can maintain for an hour. Put high quality BMX pedals on that same bike. Guess what? If you can maintain a 90 RPM cadence for an hour clipped in, you can maintain an 90 RPM cadence for an hour with BMX pedals.

This is not something you need to guess, or speculate, or imagine. It takes five minutes to swap out a pair of pedals. An hour later, you will know the truth: being clipped in is a wonderful scam...if you are one of the people selling $200 pedals and $200 shoes.