In the meantime, the experiment stands as proof that evolution does not always lead to the best possible outcome. Instead, a chance event can sometimes open evolutionary doors for one population that remain forever closed to other populations with different histories.
Who ever claimed it does lead to 'the best possible outcome'? Evolution tends to be adapting to past generation's selection and so on, but it's not some sort of 'conscious process' so much in that always the best options are chosen at all. Also, all this really proves is that it's all about possibilities and that mutations in certain sequences happen to open different evolutionary doors.
I am assuming however that the conditions for all generations and the 12 root-colonies were just about the same, so it does make sense that mutations that are less predictable in nature started to define the outcome at some point making sure there would be a greater variation when compared to the other 'branches' of the 12 root-colonies they started out with.
In other words chance inevitably had more influence on the entire outcome, than say normal selection through more selective conditions. I'm still convinced that having more or less the same conditions will result in more or less the same evolution, however the conditions need to be pretty selective for it to have a greater impact than mere 'mutational chance (&change)'.
