Quick review of the Raf rivet hi-tops before I return them:
There are some decent qualities to them: The leather is reasonably supple, they have a CP outsole (the sizing is the same as CPs) but a removable footbed (which is pretty comfortably, kinda like the footbed on MMM GATs), and the profile at the front of the shoe is pretty sleek. The color's also decent; it's a dark olive/army, fairly unique but still subtle, and not puke-ish. The rivets aren't bad, and I guess I'm kind of neutral on them.
Overall, though, not worth keeping. The first thing that jumps out is the stupid flaps over the eyelets of the laces. They're not sewn down anywhere, so one of them was sort of sticking up right out of the box. Any decent cobbler could cut them off cleanly without otherwise affecting the rest of the shoe, though, so it's a problem with an easy solution.
The bigger problem is that once you hit the ankle, the shoe gets really bulky. There's a bunch of padding around the shaft and more in the tongue, so they end up being kinda puffy. You pretty much have to tuck unless you're wearing fairly straight-leg jeans, and they look pretty extreme with the tongue sticking out.
The way the laces and tongue work together is a little odd, too. The tongue velcros to the shaft, but it's roomy enough that you can still slip the shoe on and off without untying it. The problem is, you get significant heel slip that way. If you try to tighten the laces to the point where you don't get heel slip, the tongue folds up and looks weird.
additional shots (Click to show)
