You need all the proto birds you can get. Why shoot this one down? Still there is an incredible lack of evidence to support avian evolution and no logical reason for them to evolve. Unless you are going to stick with the Type R High performance road handling story. What is interesting about the feathers is that there are plenty of example of flying reptiles that flew quite well without feathers and yet for reasons only known to Darwin, Archaeopteryx pops up out of nowhere with perfectly functional avian type feathers. In light of the chicanery with Archaeoraptor liaoningensis out of China I wouldn't put much stock in your picture of Caudipteryx xoui. However I suppose you need all the help you can get. The question is where are all the feathered reptiles today? Did they all become birds? One would expect that evolution being mostly random forces that we should still have plenty of them around today.
Regards,
Boiler Plate