I've been wearing Rockport dress shoes religiously now for almost twenty years. I happened to find these in dark brown leather while shopping at a Rockport Outlet store in 2005. I bought them again in 2008 when the first pair's soles wore out and then bought another pair the same year in the lighter espresso nubuck for less formal occasions. By this year, I'm on my third pair of the dark brown leather ones and my second pair of the espresso nubuck ones. As others have mentioned, the cushioning of the soft rubber sole seems to be at the expensive of it wearing pretty quickly, like racing tires which trade tread life for outstanding grip. Granted, I work in an office environment and don't have much foot traffic, so it's not like I put several miles a day on them. Despite that, I like the style very much as they're perfect for business casual yet more rugged than loafers. Recently, I cross-shopped these against the best of the best (Florsheim, Johnston & Murphy, Clarks, etc.)and still returned to the Rockport's for style and comfort. The only caveat is that you may end up having to replace them a lot sooner than you would like.