Originally Posted by
Lemuria
Actually, there's a more fundamental reason for the sandals when barefooted. The shape of your foot. The default 'shoe' is done that way because the height of the character is based on the character's heels. This means that the character models are basically designed around always wearing shoes or boots, even when 'barefooted'. If they changed the mesh, your character would magically have heels which didn't touch the ground, or rather deformed feet to accommodate the heel position.