Footways overdose

Hi there,

Due to some OSM research, it just became clear to me that I possibly overused footways a lot in my cities...

See here or here.

I extensively use footways as "real" footways. However, It seems that in the OSM commuity, this is really uncommon. Footways seem only to be used if they are not situated directly alongside a road.

What do you think? Is my way of using footways totally wrong and I should delete them? Or is this usage tolerable?

Greetings, Markus