I agreed with you that hierarchies are human constructs. Nevertheless, the phylogenetic tree falls into place very easily, and fits several independent ways of organizing a tree.
Many critics of Darwinism still agree with common descent – for example Behe and Denton.
Sorry, but those “functional information” arguments are sleight of hand parlor tricks.
Evolution itself could be viewed as natural genetic engineering. I’m not opposed to the idea that intelligence is involved. But I disagree with the insistence that it must be conscious intelligence. The behavior of biological populations is already intelligence enough.