A high school team in our area is running it this year. It's total confusion for a defense. You can't abandon the run once there's been a pitch or handoff.
It's a gimmick the same way the Read Option was a gimmick, the same way the forward pass was a gimmick, the same way the fake option give/pass to the wideout is a gimmick. In other words, it's not.
Gimmicks are fake punts and fake FGs. Other than that, this is football. It puts an awful lot of pressure on the Defense to cover multiple people.