The shoes look OK but ruined by the laces they look just awful. Compare them to the ones below.
The bottom pic... isn't that just how they do the laces for display? They can't actually be worn like that, can they?

That may be a real dumb question from a country hick, but I can't figure out how the heck a person would tie their shoes if it's laced like the bottom picture. It makes no sense to me.

MoR, that's a good point... I need to invest in a good set of shoe trees.