It's now a little over a year since my first set of cleats. The cleats are LOOK-style, but are not LOOK-branded.
The shoes are holding up well, but the cleats are falling apart. They are in any case made from plastic+rubber and clearly count as a consumable that must be periodically replaced.
Can I continue to ride with the cleats pictured or must I wait to get a new set of cleats? (Even in my hybrid bike toe-clips commuter days, but especially now on a road bike, I find pushing without pulling to be quite inefficient and distinctly irritating.) Does the broken corner (see picture) impede proper locking into the pedals?
Also, I can now feel that the 9° float adds to my confusion. Especially when dismounting in a hurry, I prefer to be able to unlock faster. The 9° float only delays unlocking. I am not quite sure yet that I nailed the bike fit (I did it myself), and so it's perhaps prudent to switch to 4.5° float and delay the 0° cleats for the next stage.
In other words, I will anyway replace these cleats soon. Still, I'd like to understand whether the broken corner (see picture) of these cleats signal that they are no longer usable. I can lock in and unlock easier than it used to be (without readjusting the pedal's spring), but the spring can perhaps get looser on its own with time.
If you see one (the right foot, right also in the picture) is more heavily used than the other, it's because I always dismount on the right, which is especially handy in a country with right-of-the-road driving, since I can then use the edge of the sidewalk/pavement to lean while remaining seated. Just like always using one of the two wheels to brake means that those brake pads will get worn long before the other pair, it makes perhaps sense to learn to alternate. Expect a future question with the subject line: "Do British cyclists wear out cleats on the left foot much faster than on the right?" (though I'm in no particular hurry to know the answer.)
Update: It may be inaccurate to call these simply Look- (or LOOK-) style. There are at least two variations, Look-Keo and Look-Delta, and they are presumably non-interchangeable.
Same cleats, a year and thousands of km of riding ago: