"Phil. Have you ever thought that that point in front of the foot is never reached."
But it most certainly IS REACHED!
Take a look at any of the vidoes here. The body does not stop stationary over the ball of foot until the moving foot is in position, it keeps moving. You can plainly see that the body is soon over a point on the floor well ahead of the standing foot. Draw a line down the dancer's back, and you'll often see that this line (down the back, not even through the center) hits the floor in advance of the standing toe.
These are SIMPLE AND IRREFUTABLE FACTS.
"To reach it wouldn't the feet have to come to an absolute stop"
Suprisingly, it is rather common for the standing foot, or at least the front part of it, to be at an absolute stop during this phase of the action... (I wonder if that's why the call it the standing foot and not the moving foot???)
"Plus in all those years that there has been a technique book why wasn't it mentioned."
Because it's downright obvious - everybody already walks this way, yourself included. If you are not doing it when dancing, you have somethig seriously wrong with your movement!
"It would have been very simple to say we let our body get in front of our feet by leaning over them."
But we don't - we DO NOT LEAN. Instead, we project the entire body, keeping vertical alignment from the knees up.
"They more than likely thought with the knees flexed how could we."
By putting your knees ahead of your foot and everything else lined up, over your knees. How many times are you going to ignore the explanation?????
"With a straight knee you can incline forward from the foot all the way to the top of your head and fall."
And that, my friend, is why we * Bend * the * Knee * RATHER THAN INCLINE THE BODY.