Exactly.
I don’t like to place any emphasis on the kick-out. It happens as soon as the knee stops rising: At this point there is a transferal of angular momentum down the leg shaft to the foot which will pop forward whether you like it or not. It does not need to be emphasised. The action is up and down, not out and rake back although it may look like the latter.
Effective stride length has nought to do with how far you stick your leg out in front of the COM. That just lowers the COM and extends the moment of contact, damaging the quality of impulse and return.
Effective stride length real is the distance you move the pelvis forward from toe-off to landing.
Bud Winter may have recommended the kick-out but that’s not what his top guys did when they ran their best at Mexico Olympics in 1968.
And eliminating the kick-out is another reason times have continued to drop in the men’s sprints.
However, there will be an argument for the kick-out as demonstrated by FloJo. Closer examination of her form on video needs to be conducted to see how much the actual kick-out played in her record sprints because at point of contact in her fastest runs footstrike was very close to the COM…so did she even need to do that?