I knew when I wrote the comment that I should've subbed out "feet" for "ground contact point", but I thought "no, that sounds clunky, and anyway, people will understand the point I'm making."
But no, this is the internet, where people willfully ignore a point if they can weasel around the semantics.
In all of those animals, the foot does not behave the same way as it does in humans. You yourself admit that the back half of the foot (the part not touching the ground) behaves like the achilles tendon in humans. Therefore, with a larger human foot, you have all of this additional mass (which bears a large energy cost, as it's positioned at the end of a lever) and a larger contact point, which is necessary for bipedal stability, but ultimately hinders running efficiency.
Therefore, a runner with a smaller foot better mimics the foot and ankle structure of the above-mentioned animals e.g. small mass at the end of a lever, small contact point that attaches to a long vertical(ish) spring.