alright, the fact of the matter is that people who ran the pump dry and destroyed the shoes is generally do to the fact that they 1. weren't aware of how the pump worked and 2. didnt understand how much water was in the bilge vs pump capacity.
While I would agree that the damn pump was a big P.O.S., if you had the slightest idea on how to run the damn things.. you never had issues. I generally spent the first 5-10 mins venting off the casing in order to get sufficient suction to do anything. However, once I had a suction, the thing ran fine. Just had to pay attention to bilge level. I never got proficient at running the pump out to sea until I stood my first CRW ORSE Cycle. Other than that, it was all in port operations.
And yes, you could see it run while out to sea. On CVN 74, we would pump certain tanks to the B&O Tanks and then use the eductor to pump down the B&O Tanks.