Comment by sahara

I always wondered about whether that was meant to have any practical function. (Protective cushioning at the expense of board feel? Shoes stay on better while untied?)

Now the pendulum has swung all the back in the other direction. All these years later, Koston is signed to Nike, and his pro-model basically just looks like a running shoe: http://store.nike.com/us/en_us/pd/sb-koston-max-mens-skatebo...