This is interesting, but there is actually a much less expensive version of the idea.
Evolution occurs, novelty arises, but only within the constraints of mother nature's physics budget.
The comment is essentially correct about using this type of simulation environment to look for patterns of gradualism vs. punctuation. There is a new game, a game of fighting of robots. I had similar thoughts. When I first chanced on the program I almost dismissed it as something for adolescent computer nerds, but when I realised the evolutionary connotations I was hooked. There is a distinct wave-like pattern in the frequency of design advances.