Best pedal and strap / toe clip and strap combination

Trying to decide on what to do here for a new build.

Have been looking at all city double plastic toe clips and unsure of the leather straps.

Or ynot with flat pedals too

Pedals seem to be a choice of MKS Sylvan or GR9's

Did quite a lot of googling on this and still back at square one, it seems like you can spend a lot on pedals and straps (e.g. Toshi)

What combinations do you use?

I ride Duo Resilite pedals with restrap horizontals, so very similar to your Ynot + flat pedals thoughts.

Find the combo comfortable, the Velcro strap means you can adjust shoe/foot position/snugness on the fly - I find it handy as I like wearing different shoes on the bike.

Never really got on with toe clips (and I had them with MKS Sylvan's) but I am sure others love em.

I use MKS steel toe clips with single straps, no issues with those. The steel ones are quite slim though, so you may want to consider what type of shoes you wear: the plastic ones may take more bulky shoes. Actually getting them tightened can be a pain in London's Famous London's traffic.

I've had quite a few 'I used to use those things' comments from other cyclists and even drivers - clearly toe clip users are getting thin on the ground.

Are the horizontal straps hard to slip into? they seem like a snug fit are bmx pedals hard to flip without the tongue?

I was using mks steel toe clips and blb double straps on my previous ride. They were fine but a friend said I should look into ynot's and bmx style pedals. Most of my searching brings up fixed gear riders that run them like bmx's... not into jumps and hops tbh

They're adjustable so as tight (or loose) as you want so not hard to slip into.

But you're right about them being more of a pain to flip -I only run with one strap on my left foot as I found it a pain getting my right foot in the strap without a tongue, I am sure if I stuck with it I'd be fine by now but laziness won.

DMR V8s and Holdfasts are great.
But remove a few pins from the strap side so your feet don't get stuck inside or chew up your soles. The flipside is also broad and grippy for when tooling around when you don't want or need to be strapped in.

Used to run mks custom nuevo, mks xl toe clips and double mks straps. Liked the set up but after switching to duo plastic pedals + horizontral restraps haven't looked back. I keep left shoe always in strap, and don't really need to flip the pedal to get the righ strapped in as you just catch it on the up turn of the cycle - becomes second nature pretty quick.