Every time the grad student punches the robot with a stick I wonder when it is going to punch back :-) It says something about the improvement in anthropomorphism I think.

Real gaits though really need a foot with four degrees of freedom rather than the more common three. Typically the 'foot' plate has a roll, pitch, and yaw component. If you add an additional bend access where humans and animals have the 'ball' of their foot so that you have a flat surface on the ground while "up on your toes" to can add some additional gait styles.