Very interesting read. Looking forward to see more follow ups on this topic :)
I think the obvious value of such work would be generated enemies that don't look the same.
Oh and now that I think about that, it reminds me of Jade Cocoon. Jade cocoon was an RPG game were you could capture creatures and fight with them (pokemons you said?). The interesting part was, you could merge creatures into one to join their abilities into a new offspring. But the abilities were not the only thing inherited. Indeed, creature shared morphological characteristics of their parents. Maybe you should take a look at the game ;)