"OK, an experiment. Sit down and write down in a list EVERYTHING you did in the past 24 hours. Everything."
Your analogy falls apart from the very beginning because of one huge error.
You have, in essence, a "chain of custody" for everything that you did in the last 24 hours because all of those events belong to your memory. There is no question of whether or not you actually did some of those things you can remember or whether someone else actually did them.
There is no similar chain of custody for the bones in the fossil record. Sure, we have have bones here and bones there, some have strongly similar characteristics along with non-similar characteristics, but this means nothing outside of knowing exactly who the bones belonged to and how they came to be where they are today.
The forensic evidence is interesting, and at times compelling, but science and forensics are two different fields. Science is based on repeatable, duplicatable, verifiable experimentation, not a strong inference based on certain assumptions and a preponderance of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Science is not equal to the sum of scientific consensus.
With the popular assumptions of potential inherited characteristics the whole question of origins moves from the realm of science to the realm of forensics. No one actually knows what a transitional form would look like because no one has actually produced a control for a transitional form in a lab. That leaves it all open to speculation at that point, and is why the "missing link" keeps changing. If it was really the missing link then it wouldn't get updated periodically.
Ok, but that's not really the point. If I change it to "have everybody you know and came in contact with make the list". Then, from what I can tell, THAT satisfies your argument.
And, if one had enough outside contact, one could still reconstruct most of the events of the day. And, with each successive bit of input - friends, surveillance cameras, fast-food cashiers, the events of the day would become much clearer.
Some of the "missing links" may never be known - nobody saw you - maybe you were alone.
But, then start examining changes in the house, phone bills, TV audit trails, food in the fridge - and, in many cases , a pretty darn clear picture of "what you did that day" would emerge. And, the Fast food person may remember you - but not have a clue as to what time of day it was - but, based upon the timeline of other obersvations - one might be able to infer WHERE in the timeline the visit to Burger King took place.
And, my point is, just because there is nothing to pinpoint exactly what you did at say between 6AM & 7AM, it does not invalidate the the rest of the information.
Police do this sort of investigative work all the time.
That's all a "missing link" is. One more piece of a puzzle in which you will NEVER have all of the pieces.