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I have SPD's on my commuter bike and winter bike but KEOS on my good bike. I concur that they are made of cheese, annoyingly although I have a spare set at home they've died on my last 2 cycling holidays meaning I've learned the Spanish and Italian words for cleat... The covers help a little but I have a tendency to lose them so seriously considering changing to spd-sl or something else. I do find I get hotspots when doing long rides on the winter bike with SPD's so would rather have something roadie, but preferably less cheese like.
I have recently given up on road pedals and have started using the spd 530s on the road bike which give a bit more support although still have the small cleat. I bought an adaptor to use my road shoes with the 530s all of which work fine. I always clip in when setting off with no comedy chin on stem, nads on cross bar moments as I used to get with various road pedals. I'm sure that more power could be exerted using proper road cleats + pedals but this set up will do me fine.
Ironically the only downside is that spd cleats on road shoes make it just as difficult to walk!
I use non-road pedals for road.
used to use Spec Comp shoes and SPDs but got bad knees (probably bad set-up) and hotspots (flexy soles).
I changed to Giro MTB shoes with carbon soles (very similar to their road shoes) and Crank Bros Candies and have never looked back.
I keep toying with the idea of proper road shoes and cleats but I'd rather spend the c.£200 required on something else for my bike as I don't think the benefits would be significant.
And whilst I don't do loads and loads of road riding I still do 70-120 mile rides every 2-3 weeks.
I have good quality MTB shoes and pedals and good quality road shoes and pedals. I woudn't want to road ride in MTB shoes, having tried the alternative. Road shoes are more secure, give better support, are stiffer (I wouldn't want MTB shoes that stiff as need to walk) which makes them nicer to ride in.
I don't commute in them though, and on the occasions I've ridden to work on my road bike I've taken my shoes off to walk 20-30 yards into the building.
I have always used MTb shoes (very stiff carbon ones) and SPDs on the road bike, partly because as they get crappy they become my best MTb shoes and each pair moves down a notch.
I still wear them when I am out in the winter when we tend to do back roads and rougher lanes.
Having bought a pair of carbon soled road shoes I wonder why I waited. They are so much more effective with road pedals. Look Keos.
Road shoes/pedals are like they are for a reason. They do that job best. You may not need that "best" but its there.
Using them to wander around the shops is daft though.
To those who say that you don't need them....you don't need SPds either or suspension or more than one gear.
I used clown shoes but I found toe overlap issues so after one failed slow speed cornering comedy accident I tried proper road shoes, What a revelation!
I had dismissed disco-slippers as some kind of effeminate roadie affectation that owed more to history than effectiveness. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Just walk on your heels, I somehow managed to lose a bit of the front tow grip on my R132 shoes