This shoe crushes the top of my foot just above the base of the toes and requires a lot of brief wearing for a gentle break in.  Now I can run in them - three or four miles typical, but I still can't walk more than short distances because the toe flexes more when walking and crushes my foot.  That said, now they do what I wanted them to do for winter running shoe - keep the water out in near freezing wet conditions and wet snow while remaining fairly close to minimalist.  Wearing wool socks, by feet stay pretty warm and dry now, whereas with the summer type minimalist shoes my feet would often get numb while running in bad conditions.  For a great minimalist shoe, try the recently introduced Merrell Vapor Glove - it requires no break in and is truely minimalist.  The quality of the Merrel shoes is great, but I am a bit dissapointed in this one in that it is still not really "broken in".