Survival is an excellent engineer. There are 350 myo fossils every bit as ingeniously engineered as is the seahorse. Most were unlucky enough to come to an end due to changes in their environment the did not survive. However, some are around today, like the scorpion or the horseshoe crab who dodged the mass extinction bullet.
Evolution, however, selects for survivability not perfection. The trilobite was one of the most efficient and successful designs but they didn’t survive the Permian Extinction.
Survival is a selector, not an engineer. Variability around the genetic norm means several closely related forms existed or were coded to exist— not that new genetic material was added. Survival could not engineer new species.
Well put. I tend to think of evolution as the survival of the least inadequate.