modern humans are only 160.000 years old. Everything else were some ancestors
The babies with 'gills' well... ever looked at a fetus?
They have 'gills' (german Kiemenbogen, english brachial arcs, I think. There is sadly only a german wikipedia article about it).
Almost all important nerves are builded out of them...
A growing fetus is going through evolution in 9 month, from some cells, a wormlike creature, a fishlike creature, something looking a little bit human, even fur is there and completly lost.. and when there is a dysfunction, you'll get a babie with only one 'leg', without arms, without head, etc pp
So yes, we have 'funny' genes, but they are only needed in the first 9month to get to a 'complete' 'functional' human beiing 
And recombination is not the only form of 'evolution'... it is the only one, your 'genetic scientists' are able to work with... please... search for 'mitochondria' .. this little fellows have mutations in their dna every odd thousand years.. and sometimes only one base has to flip to turn 'yunk' into something usefull... or something complety different
You can use the mutations in mitchondria, to show when a species split etc because of this changes. Recombining is maybe the most important point for a stable and healthy population, but no recombining give you more chromosoms, or less, that needs some bigger mutations
And while we are at it: in most human cells, we have indeed two sets of chromosoms, but this is not true for livercells... if a organism/cell is under very hard stress or has to deliver highend metabolistic capabilies, it usually has a lot more genetic material, than needed (barley is such an organism)
