That may be so, but the popular press is often riddled with usages that differ wildly from the way words are used in technical fields. In the evolution/creationism threads, for the past few years we've been mainly discussing biology. Sometimes the origin of life itself comes up, but that's really a chemistry problem (an unsolved problem so far), and it doesn't deal with the way species evolve once life actually begins. The topic of the origin of the universe is usually discussed in astronomy/cosmology threads. Cosmology and biology are different sciences. It doesn't matter how the universe got itself created as far as the biological theory of evolution is concerned, and vice versa. One is independent of the other. It's just wrong to lump them all together as if they were the same thing.
Exactly. The term "Stellar evolution" for example is a theory describing the life cycle of a star. However, very few people that I am aware suggest that variations in a star's composition may give it an advantage competing for resources.
As has been pointed out numerous times, "evolution" is often generalized to mean "change over time." This is not necessarily incorrect, it just means that people on both sides should be aware of the usage being argued.