Heya Irish Farmer, a couple things about your extensive post... since you took the trouble to write all that out. heh!

I think you may have overlooked cross breeding between species as a way of gaining new traits in genetics or blending genetics to arrive at a new species as a possibility. It is my belief this happened often with the dinosaurs and their predecessors.

Don't you think it is far reaching to think that since scientists failed to produce life in a lab it is not a possibility? You should see my friends refridgerator and then talk about spontaneous life

Also the scientists did not wait a million years to see what popped up. Yes I know you made a point about this and it is true that in a matter of a few years whole attributes of a species might change before our very eyes but, the species most likely will not change into a new one. However you cannot deny that over millions of years whole ages of creatures have come and gone, leaving only remnants of their existence in the creatures of today, such as the shark and the alligators.

You also seem to have a misconception of feathers and flight. There were creatures that existed that were covered in feathers but did not have wings nor did they fly. Bats as well are an example of a creature that flys and yet has no feathers. Fossils and forensics are teaching us new things all the time including these kind of misconceptions of what we think we know.