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What you are talking about is something a tad more modern than that ~ an "evolved" version in fact ~ but is it better adapted to its environment?

Yes, and yes.

Now, real quick, where's the seat of consciousness, and do single celled animals have one?

Hah! It's probably an emergent property, and it's also something that the theory of evolution does not currently address and possibly never will.

I thought of another thing regarding genes and relatedness. You seem to be an ID proponent rather than YEC? The typical ID spokespersons do accept descent from a common ancestor, but while evolutionists say that this could happen via natural means (not excluding God here, there are theistic evolutionists who believe this, just as there are those who believe God controls the weather even though he does so through natural means) the ID people insert little kicks into the system on occasion. So we need eukaryotes--here's a kick! Multicellularity--another kick! Accepting ID as it is currently proposed implies accepting common descent.

So the trouble with saying that God (oops, I mean the Designer) made all of these organisms with slightly different gene sequences for whatever reason and it is not a hint at relatedness is that most ID and many YEC proponents do allow for some speciation. Those who do would see no problem with setting up a phylogeny based upon multiple gene sequences for a group of animals they think are related. But then we aren't allowed to take a further step and compare groups that that particular IDer does not think are related? Why not? The point at which a IDer/YEC will say "No more!" varies from person to person. One person I almost got to agree that it could be that felines and canines were related. Others won't even admit foxes and wolves are. It is all quite arbitrary!

So logically it seems there are only two internally consistent paths--either accept zero speciation or accept common descent by countless kicks. Ouch.

Or, alternatively, accept the idea that simply because two critters have identical code sequences on the same gene, that does not necessary imply common origin.

The idea is that some processes can be performed ONLY by a gene with certain sequences, and where they are obtained are irrelevant to how they work.

An analogy would be automobiles and carburators. Just because all cars (used to) have carburators does not mean they are all the same make.

We are probably going to have to face this problem when we meet our first life forms in the far reaches of space.