[drpix]

That debate is why my post stated “...that could/should have left transitional fossil records” to make my point irrespective of it.

[BroJoeK]

drpix: "That debate is why my post stated “...that could/should have left transitional fossil records” to make my point irrespective of it."

But "could have left transitional fossil..." is meaningless because the data is what it is.
250,000 fossil species collected so far seems like a lot, but it's heavily weighted towards species living in places which might more readily fossilize them -- shallow marine animals, for example.

So in any particular transitional sequence, millions of years can separate one fossil from the next, making evolutionary changes seem abrupt, radical & ah, "punctuated."

Consider just one example: La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles -- over 3.5 million individual remains representing some 650 species discovered so far.
How many sites like it are there in the world?
None I know of, but others similar in having been at some time death traps accumulating large numbers of species in one place & time.

1. La Brea tar pits 10,000 to 55,000 years old.

2. Nullarbor Plain, western Australia, marsupial cave trap, one million years old.

3. Harrison, Nebraska, Agate Fossil Beds, 22 million years old.

4. Moab, Utah dinosaur trap 125 million years old.

5. Gobi Desert, China, mud traps, 160 million years old.

So, at "site A" we get a snapshot of a time & place, then separated by many millions of years at "site B" different snapshot of a different time & place, etc., etc. -- is it any wonder the evolutionary changes seem punctuated?

It shouldn't be.