Today I went for a long walk barefoot, I even ran a bit. It was a bit painful walking over asphalt, pebbles, gravel, but I survived with no cuts. The feet are over-sensitive from lack of use.
Why am I going barefoot? Mainly because it is the natural thing to do. Our bodies are the products of thousands of years of evolution, shoes have only been around for a tiny fraction of that. I discovered that shoes change the gait a huge amount, resulting in heel-first walking/running. I always thought heel-first was normal. How wrong I was.
Just look at this video:
Gait changed by shoes
For a good overview of shoes vs barefoot:
The painful truth about trainers