I barely know anything about the details of biology. But I've thought for a long time that genetics would make taxonomy obsolete. But in fact, this tree structure classification system already provides a way of distinguishing physical traits in a way that will probably allow identification of gene sequences that can, in the future, be spliced into our own. Granted, the taxa are very general at the moment. For example animals that are vertibrates or non-vertibrates are grouped separately. But you get the idea that as long as a trait occurs frequently, animals that have it can be grouped separately, and the genes easily identified. From what I've read on genetics, even if a desireable trait occurs rarely, it can be cultured. For example, if a farmer finds a plant in his field whose seed pods did not shatter, and he feels that this would make it easier to harvest the crop, he could specifically select that plants' seeds for next years crop. Once he has a large number of specimens he might be able to identify the gene that enhances that trait, and splice it into other species where this trait has not occurred, but would also make it easier to harvest. And so on.