How soft can ice dance boots be?

[Query]

[cross posted to Yahoo ice dancer's group]

I know this is a matter of opinion, as I've seen dancers skate in everything
from glove-soft boots to full-on freestyle boots, but I'd like some opinions.

How do you tell when ice dance boots are broken down?

How much ankle support should they provide?

What exactly do you expect ice dance boots to do for you?

I assume my boots are broken down because they no longer restrict the
sideways-bend range of motion of my ankle, and because there is a small start of
a breakdown crease on one of them - more a 1/2" long strip of rough surface than
an indentation, right next to where I had cut dance notches to improve
flexibility.

A more advanced ice dancer disagreed. She says ice dance boots shouldn't limit
range of motion. She said full range of motion inside the boot is an expected
component of good ice dance, and just means the boots have broken in.

It is obvious that maintaining a safe range of motion is the major purpose of
freestyle boots. The way I see it, as a guy who has never worn other high heel
shoes, the major difference between lady's high heel fashion shoes and any
skating boots, in terms of feel and safety, is that they provide enough ankle
support to prevent turning the ankle.

These are my only boots, and I also do minor league 1/2 rotation jumps (I can't
go beyond 3/4 rotation) in them. The boots do not feel like they provide much of
a safety margin on such jumps. An ice dancer of my very modest level doesn't
jump during ice dance, so maybe that shouldn't be relevant...

(Jumping barefoot off-ice feels safe, and I don't need support there. Presumably
the difference has to do with wearing high heels and balancing on a blade.)

The boots are 11 or 12 year old custom (but badly misfit) Klingbeil Dance boots,
with a few thousand hours of use. During the first 6 or 7 years they were much
too stiff for me, as I will never be a high level skater, and I eventually used
radical means to soften them. I attribute the break-down (or break-in?) to these
means, not to the quality of workmanship, and attribute the misfit to the
non-factory fitter, not to Klingbeil.