Here is my take, I am never barefoot and surely was never barefoot often as a child. I lived in the city, I wore shoes. I wore slippers around the house... even now I usually have something on (even just socks) unless I'm sleeping.
It's..weird.
You feel everything. Suddenly what your foot DOES when you walk is noticeable since there is no cushion to make it less so. I stand on my tippytoes and ball strike HARD and LOUD when running/walking, which in regular shoes has enough cushion to kind of pad my foot but in these.. I feel it. Especially my running form, it's like retraining how I run because I can FEEL my foot hitting pavement wrong.
and suddenly my pretty normal stance of standing on tippy toes when not moving feels like a workout. which is weird.
I am pretty sore (my achilles tendon especially) then again I was an idiot who went running in them before my feet were ready. So now I'm back to square one and just walking in them to walk Merlin or other dogs.
Overall, I like them. I think once I get more used to walking and get back to running in them slowly they will be great.
The only thing I do not really like is that it POINTS OUT OBVIOUSLY the ways I am running incorrectly. Things that were silly little mistakes or just technical stuff in my nike frees and BLARING mistakes in these because I can feel everything. Which I do like but I don't lol I don't because it's annoying but I know overall it's good for me to know these things I'm doing wrong
You know, the reason you hate yours is the reason I miss my dead ones like horribly!!!
They really do make your form flaws blaringly obvious, but that really is a good thing. Even with padding, heel striking while running is absolutely horrible on your body, especially knee's.
Maybe you should go out and jog a couple paces and just work on your form? Focusing less on distance or time and just examining my running form, and having my boyfriend help as well, really helped my form and make me feel more comfortable while running. If you can get your form to where you are not heel striking, or hitting the pavement hard at all, you will feel so much better, I promise!
When I wear my vibrams (ewll, mine are dead, so when I use to wear them lol) I feel like I'm floating on the ground. My form becomes so light and effortless. I don't strike the ground and push, it's more like stretching my legs out and pulling myself along. I can run further and faster and end feeling fantastic!
In my nike's, that are one of the best running shoes I've ever had other than my Vibrams of course, even though I'm aware of my form I heel strike more often and I have to really concentrate on my form because I can't feel what I'm doing as much. I end up running myself ragged in half the time.
So in the end, for me at least, working on my form first really helped to make me fall in love with my vibrams. I miss them SOOOOO much right now. Everytime I go running I get sad thinking about my dead vibrams. lol
Oh, I hate feeling rocks as I do a lot of trail running, so mine did have thicker soles.
*edit* also, I absolutely HATE HATE HATE being barefoot. Period. I wear thin toes socks.
Also, I think vibrams are ugly. But, eh, I love them too much to be embarrassed now. I was a bit in the beginning, but got over it fairly quickly.