These shoes are for any sort of scrambling/bouldering that requires any sort of moderate to long approach. They are obviously not full blown rock shoes but climb exceptionally well on class 3, 4, and low to mid-5 terrain in my opinion (I'd have to disagree that shoes like this don't climb well in low to mid-5 terrain, this is what they are built for). They also hike well and are much lighter than a hiking boot. To give an example, I used the Five Ten Insight (very similar shoe) for climbing the Upper-Exum on the Grand Teton, which required a 10+ mile round trip as well as 5.0 to 5.6 scrambling/climbing. My alternative would have been to wear a hiking boot and carry rock shoes in my pack. Approach shoes are pefect for an outing like this. I'd agree with your concerns about the water proofing, this is the one downside of these shoes.

You are spot on about this shoe. I live in the sierra nevada mountains. I've worn these shoes almost every day for over a year, when much of the time I would have been in hiking boots. The only times I didn't wear these was when I was in ski boots or sorrels (due to deep powder). They have excellent traction on ice and hard pack snow as well as rock. These shoes were perfect for an ascent of Mt. Ritter from my house, which involved hiking in with a three day pack, rope, harness, sleeping bag, etc. They worked well with strap on alpine crampons for the snow field and climbed great on the 3rd class rock. Heavy? I don't think so when compared with the alternative- a light mountaineering/hiking boot. Did I mention they have great support for hiking with a load? Better than many high top boots, due to the heel wrapping rubber .