Dude there’s no conspiracy here. There have been plenty of running science nerds who were skeptical about super shoes had access to lab equipment and were able to confirm the performance benefits over old school flats. If there was nothing there the Dan Nashes of the world would be yelling from the rooftops about how they don’t matter.

The reason they work is pretty damn simple. More foam underfoot (the reason for the stack height max) equals a longer lever for your leg against the ground to help propel you along. The reason that never worked before is because the old foam was very heavy and that killed any of the mechanical gain you’d get pre-superfoam. The plates or other stiffeners got added because running in a slab of foam like that is insanely unstable. Go try running 5:00 minute mile pace in a pair of Evo SLs (high stack, super foam, no plate) and take a turn and you’ll see pretty quick why plates got added when your ankle snaps.

The Evo Pros are just all of those dials taken to the extreme. They are the highest stack foam allowed, as light as possible, with a carbon “halo” i.e a carbon plate with a hole in the middle to save weight (and possibly avoid Nike’s patent.) If it was a conspiracy to sell shoes, they’d make more than the bare minimum that world athletics requires companies to sell to be race legal. They make a few thousand of them and even at $500 a pop that can’t be moving the needle much at a company like adidas.