I can't see how you can be just so evangelical about this. My whole premise has been that, for this artificial activity of road running, minimalist is good for some people... but others need the support of a good well engineered shoe. You seem to see only a blinkered view IMO.
Incidentally, if you're going to call people 'brainwashed', then you have to be open to the same charge, but coming from the other side. Your utter refusal to accept road running shoe technology has its place (in my opinion a fairly large but not exclusive place) for sensible injury free road runners - the opinion is certainly rather extreme.
Your assertion that I'm not a natural, or experience runner, because I hold a different view to you, is all a bit 'playground name calling'.
Endurance running on tarmac is IMO an unnatural activity. Contrary to your assertion, as our bodies evolved, it is widely accepted that we didn't move far on our feet... largely gathering fruit and nuts from trees, bushes etc - did some scavenging and some hunting. The hunting was mainly done using the advantage of our large brains to catch animals by stalking and ambush. With a short sharp sprint sometimes used either before spearing the prey - or to finish off a kill before an injured animal escaped.
You've selectively picked out a rare hunting technique - where humans hunted as a team to out-endure large animals. You've then extrapolated this to suggest this is how our entire species has evolved. Well, I'm not a trained anthropologist, but have read enough to know that the big-brained, stalking/ambush behaviour is likely to have been hugely dominant. And even when they did go for endurance, presumably the terrain was mixed, so many of the miles were not done on hard compacted trails or ice, as you suggest).
I have to re-iterate again, I am far from anti-minimalist... I've been seriously thinking that my next shoes are likely to be minimal (or in transition)... to give it a try. It's clearly good for a lot of people - and I respect the people who advocate its benefits.
But I'm drawn into this discussion because I think the few (but often vocal) people who advocate the extreme view that virtually every runner should run minimalist are wrong, and could lead to injury to people like the OP, who had professional advice to use orthotics. And that can be offputting people coming into the sport, or damaging to people who could take a lot of pleasure from running, if only they wear the higher technology shoes.
Just read the post immediately above yours. For every person like you, who have benefited from going minimalist, there are people (in my humble opinion, many more) who are quietly benefitting from corrections made by the shoe technologies you so vehemently reject.
I'm out.
