Maybe an Intelligent Design proponent can explain why we need 33-40 phyla when merely 9 of those phyla constitute about 95% of all animal life? The remaining 26-31 phyla have fewer than about 2,000 known members—the rarest with just three members (Cycliophora: odd sacs represented by Symbion pandora), two members (Xenoturbellida: strange flatworm) or one species (Micrognathozoa: tiny jawed animal, and Placozoa, an animal that resembles a multicellular amoeba). Most are simple marine organisms, often referred to as worms or nanoplankton.
Also, how about an Intelligent Design proponent explaining why, among multi-cellular organisms, beetles and mites proliferate so much, producing hundreds of thousands of species, while other phyla produce far fewer? The number of species of mites might even reach 1 million according to some estimates, as more beetles and mites continue being discovered all the time.
About Phyla
13 phyla of multi-cellular animals appear during the Cambrian Explosion.
But…
20 phyla of multi-cellular animals appear AFTER the Cambrian. Neither is the number of phyla into which all the worldʼs species can be divided agreed upon among systematicists. Under the most frequently used classification scheme there are 38 animal phyla, but some systematicists claim there are between 35 and 40 phyla. Three new phyla were discovered in the last century, the most recent in 1993.
See also this post on living fossils.
I agree with your analysis that ALL the diversity, overlapping, barely surviving and redundant taxa should require explanation by IDers just like suffering in the world. But alas they don't think that way. Their line of reasoning is that since the Intelligent Designer (God) is not only able to design things but is also perfect in every way, that WE are not in a position to question anything it does...therefore they allow that it could've "designed" it this way for its own reasons. Their position is that if it is logically possible for it to have been done that way (IE not incoherent) then it is possible. And if it is possible, then it becomes probable. If it is probable, then it becomes likely and ultimately necessary. Because perfect gods only do things that are necessary. IOW, you'd have to show it to be absolutely IMPOSSIBLE before they'll admit it is unlikely...as John Loftus has observed. And, for them, NOTHING is impossible for their respective gods.
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