While the foam may last longer than older EVA foam shoes, the outsoles of the shoes have gotten ridiculously thin these days.

The continental rubber outsole on these Adidas Adios Pro EVO 3 shoes are so thin (less than two sheets of paper, I think), that they don't even appear in side/profile views of the shoes. The outsole doesn't even extend the length of the entire shoe, it stops around the middle of the shoe. So heel strikers aren't welcome and will have loads of fun in wet weather. see https://www.adidas.com/us/adizero-adios-pro-evo-3/KH7678.htm...

In general, these high stack, forward-leaning shoes are meant for going straight ahead - imagine ladies' high heel shoes with an inch and a half of foam on the bottom - any sharp turns will force the runner to slow down or they'll twist their ankles. Looking at the London Marathon course, https://www.londonmarathonevents.co.uk/london-marathon/cours..., there's about twenty ninety-degree or sharper turns.

What sort of gain would that be for a non-world class runner? I'm unfamiliar with high level running, but I'm curious as in most sports these sort of things provide a small benefit at the top level (seems to be about a ~3% reduction in times over the past decade since the shoe wars began), and that quickly becomes statistical noise outside of the top due to diminishing returns.

10% improvement on a 5 hour marathon time is more absolute seconds than on a 2.1hr marathon time.

But if you could only achieve it by adding the shoe isn't that a bit hollow?

If you are a 3:02 marathoner in normal shoes then run a 3:00 in a super shoe, you are still a 3:02 marathoner in normal shoes.