Thorns and thistles, God's new bells and whistles

The context for my post is Steve's post here as well as a subsequent thread over on Bnonn Tennant's Facebook wall where Dr. Dion Astwood weighed in. (To lay out my cards, my own broad position is I incline toward a mature creation, but I'm open to progressive creationism.)

Dion Astwood said:

Thorns are new and this can either be targeted genetic change by God in a pre-existent kind, permitted genetic change (which continually happens with new disease) or creating a new kind.

My response:

1. Hm, "creating a new kind"? So, at the Fall, God got rid of all the vegetarian lions and created new carnivorous lions to replace them?

2. Also, per Isa 65:25: "The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord."

   If we take this literally, then I guess in the Millennium God will re-replace the carnivorous lions with vegetarian lions?

3. If, post-Fall, "thorns are new," and if there are "creati[ons] of a new kind," then how is this substantially different from God creating a new creation? Is it a re-creation of creation? God created everything, then the Fall, then God re-created everything, then the Millennium, and God re-re-creates everything again?

4. BTW, don't some OECs who subscribe to the gap theory believe that there was a war in heaven, the fallen angels or demons (not sure if they make a distinction) were thrown down to earth, and fallen angels or demons were somehow responsible for all the predation, parasitism, pathogens, etc.? If so, then there seem to be striking parallels with the YEC argument for all the predation, parasitism, pathogens, etc.

5. If God genetically changes a vegetarian lion into a carnivorous lion, a digestive tract that once digested grass like a cow to a digestive tract that now digests meat, or teeth or claws more like a rabbit or other herbivore to razor-sharp teeth and claws, then in what sense is it still the same lion? Say if God genetically changed me from an average human being into a human being that has wings so I can fly like a bird or gills so I can breathe underwater like a fish, then in what sense am I still a human being? Harvey Birdman or Aquaman, here I come!