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Good on the whole. I accept that your examples of vestigial misfits show what might be meant by vestigial but they are much weaker than your other examples -
Circumcision - Driven by user demand not provider inertia (spiritual/religious)
Digital Signatures- See Bruce Schneier on why a digital signature is not the same as a paper signature evn though it has a similar name.
Over Adaptation - the lock example seems to have nothing to do with over adaptation. The problem to be solved is to be easy to use for the legitimate user and really hard for anyone else,
The key is what identifies the legitimate user, other identifiers are possible (what you have, what you know, what you are) but solutions which are immune to loss (what you know, what you are) require smarter locks which tend to be more expensive/dependant on power supplies/less reliable etc.

Posted by Rob Searle @ 11/21/2001 05:40 PM EST