The existence of a 'higher' code only make it more difficult for evolution, not easier.
How would this 'higher' code 'evolve'?
They can barely explain the current code.
YOu have a chip with lots of stuff "hard wired". Then, you have an operating system that's uploaded to "set the switches" in the variable portions of that chip.
Then, on top of the OS you have your application packages. Those might be combined together in something like Windows to simplify things from your perspective.
What we have in the cell is DNA. It's "wired up" ~ only we don't know where all the wires are but there are some good guesses. What we do know is what some of the applications packages are since we can observe the enzymes they use to cut, carve and manipulate DNA.
The higher level code controls the selection of the application packages and the specific DNA spindles to be selected for the applications.
Here's a problem with the report on the higher level code ~ the older members of the team will have have probably been influenced by IBM's JCL, and may well have used that knowledge to work backwards into the system to discover the code and the sectors where it's resident in the system.
And, everybody will have been influenced by their knowledge of how their PCs work. The JCL and computer models are suitible for researching the internal operations of the cells, but odds are good that that's not really how the cells work, so you can only get so far in this line of logic.
My personal choice for finding the background codes, application packages and operating systems is to start with the phenomenon of DNA carrying a current, and work backwards from there. If there's an electronic circuit somewhere in the cells directing the chemical communication devices, we're going to find it at some frequency or the other. A discovery here would enable us to work up to the codes on the chemical side with a much better idea of what they mean.