As far as I know, there is no construct in English for your examples "these days" or "the way things have evolved to be." These phrasings are cumbersome, and it seems natural to re-purpose an existing word of incredibly similar meaning to fill the need. I'm not quite disagreeing with you here, but this is my take on the issue. If there were an article on "Anymore," I would combine this article with it. Is there an "Oddities of -" or "Omissions in -" English article? 198.134.2.62