Sorry, you're still losing me as you seem to think that scientific theories are evaluated according to the connotation of the words used to describe the phenomena they explain, rather than how well they explain those phenomena, how well they survive crucial tests, and so on.
I don't dismiss ID "out of hand," btw. I dismiss it because it doesn't seem to do anything useful as a scientific theory, nor does it have any presently visible prospect of doing so.
OTOH I happen, at a philosophical level, to hold to a doctrine of creation in which all things that have being are created, not just those (or those arrangements of things) that "appear" to be "designed". If you look at it as philosophical view ID is even more useless than as a scientific theory, as it is far to small minded and limited.
I agree that ID is not within the grasp of current science, especially where any attribution of personhood is concerned.