After doing some thinking about it, I think superspikes have a ton of upsides for the sport, while having very few downsides. I figured I'd lay it all out in one post because most of the discussion I've seen on here is about how much faster the shoes make people. I'm not saying they don't make people faster, I'm saying they're good for the sport. The only people they're bad for are die-hard fans who were paying attention back when the WRs got set in the late 90s/early 2000s.
Premise 1) Technology progresses
The fact of the matter is that technology progresses over time. Tracks today are far better than they were in the 60s, but we don't discredit the records set on new tracks because of it. Sometimes technology progresses too fast, like with those swimsuits in 2008 that caused 23 WRs to get crushed at the Olympics (140 by the next year), and more regulations are put in place. A ton of WRs getting crushed in one season due to new technology IS bad for the sport. Technology came a bit too quick in the marathon, so some new regulations came for those shoes too. The drop in times (~1-2s/mile) is low enough that I think it helps the sport far more than it hurts it, especially since it just comes from having better shoes.
Premise 2) Most people don't care about technology making records easier to break
If someone isn't already a die-hard fan of the sport, they don't care about new shoes coming out that help you run a little faster. Unless it's egregious, people are just entertained to see the new fastest person ever. Who wants to watch Jim Ryun run 3:51 solo in atrocious quality when you could watch El G run 3:43 racing to the line? If you're not a fan, it's far easier to contextualize a fast time than it is to contextualize a slow time with a fast close. Once a high schooler runs 3:34, winning the Olympics in 3:50 doesn't sound impressive.
Premise 3) Almost everyone cares more about fast times than good placing at championships
This is actually almost self evident. All of my friends know I follow running, but there's only been a few times that someone's actually asked me about it, and the majority of those times were about Kipchoge running sub-2. I have never seen mainstream coverage of running like I did then, and it would have been the perfect time to capitalize and actually build the sport instead of having a bunch of people complain about shoes/pacing. Literally as simple as "Yeah, 1:59:40 is absurd, Kipchoge is amazing. Look at this race, he beat the mile WR holder and 5k/10k WR holder at WCs like 20 years ago and is still going".
Compare that to Centro winning gold in 2016. It was an amazing run, but no one outside of the running bubble cares. Outside of a few runners, literally no one I know knows his name. Even though Kipchoge had supershoes, perfect pacing, perfect conditions, and a perfect course, people still (rightfully) marveled at the performance.
4) Conclusion: Superspikes help the sport
Superspikes help enough that the best runners right now have a chance at breaking WRs. El G's and Komen's records still stand, and Bekele's have been broken by 1 (one, singular) person. I don't think it represents a seismic shift in the integrity of the sport. We should be trying to make the fastest runners stars, and leverage that to grow the sport (this means Cheptegei shouldn't dodge all the best runners in his WR attempt. The best WRs are ones that were races to the line). We shouldn't try to discredit two college kids running 3:50 in new spikes, we should try to get them more attention on social media to get people to follow them.
This post that I spent too long writing is part of my vain attempt to improve the discourse on LR. Hoping that one day this will be a place that has more running related posts with effort put into them again, even if I don't always agree with the opinions given.