a rather pointless rant about shoes

i am shopping for running shoes. this follows a visit from my mom in which she spent vast amounts of each day doing urban hiking. the last day of her visit, i went with her on a walk around the museum grounds which took us a bit over an hour. we were both a bit tired at the end, but my feet were killing me. she went on to do another hike after i had gone to class. i will be taking all my classes distance ed next semester and should have a good amount of time for walking around the lake etc. i want to work up to running (it could happen) and most walking shoes don't seem to have the same level of 'bounciness' or cushioning so dear to us who really need to walk off the weight. this is all a long introduction to my rant. i have been shopping extensively on zappos.com and to a lesser extent in local stores. i have almost selected my shoes, once i can stop gagging at the price, but have been very frustrated by the fact that i have had to rule out 95% of the sneakers on the market. ok, this is how it is. if i am paying upwards of $50 (which seems a must for really really good shoes):

-those shoes are going to look sharp
-they will not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES be white
-if there is pink ANYWHERE, you can give them to your daughter. i am a grown woman and do not need my little pony shoes.
-although they cannot be pink or white, they should not be ugly. surely there is a range of colors between the aforementioned pink/white monstrosities and orange/lime green.
-if you're going to start naming shoe colors after universities (aka carolina blue), you had better have a gorgeous red shoe sitting right next to it or it will rot in its box.
-for that matter, any shoe color best described as 'baby' or 'light' may also rot.
-grey is less ugly, but also pointless.

i am looking for:

RED
PURPLE
BLACK
DARK BLUE
DARK GREEN
preferably in vivid and violent combination.

this is what i expect in this price range. i have had to move from the almost $50 range to the 80-100 range to find a modest selection of this shoe type on zappos.com. i have not found *anything* in local stores. oh yes, and just to be really fussy, i don't do nike. yes, i know about their custom shoes and although it makes my heart go pitter patter, i got my standards.

now, i think this type of pickiness in my shopping is a fairly feminine characteristic, so why is it that the shoe companies think feminine means pink? it seems to me that what women want is selection. has no one heard of the female love of shopping?

i *might* pick up some dark grey new balance shoes, but they do not seem quite so bouncy. this seems to be the current frontrunner , although i am still dithering.

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