[jarvuschris]

That loses one of the big benefit though: being able to take breaks from the tight lace and restore it easily on the go

I can't imagine the weight couldn't be cut down to the same order of magnitude you're looking at for a shoe with strong support anyway.

[foreigner]

The application here is professional sports. In that context every tiny bit of weight matters. And they're not really "on the go" - they could just keep the machine on the sidelines.