I am aware of momentum letting you go further, I was just trying to say it bugged me how quickly you stop moving upwards even WITH lots of momentum, followed by a jump that usually just kinda goes nowhere, whereas wall-running even just a little bit towards horizontally seems to not only get you more height but also tends to keep you moving forward, which you can usually follow up with jumping towards another wall, letting the airtime restore your speed, and using that speed to go even higher up walls.
Honestly, it makes sense for wallrunning to be more effective horizontally, but going straight up always feels like a terrible idea. That said, it was something that irked me more when I didn't figure out how to avoid moving upwards while wall-running.
Also, just tried the runshoes, and yeah that's kind of crazy. I'm pretty sure you go at least ten times as fast as Knuckles goes up walls with that, it's absurd.