All organisms are made up of chemicals that the information manages and regulates. These processes are far more fantastic than mankind has ever endeavored to create, because the programming can take raw materials in the form of molecules and either uses them as fuel or as building blocks.
This chemistry lab that we call the cell not only sustains itself, but is tasked with functions that are vital to the overall success of the entire organism. How the programing handles the use and production of these cells in relation to grander systems dictates the type of organism that is alive.
If mankind could knowledgeably edit the information, we could transform a creature into another creature. However, because of the multi-layered, multi-dependent nature of the program, successful editing to the level of creating a new creature may never happen.
If you don't understand the message or the context the message relates to, it's pretty hard to stake a claim that you have information, much less quantifiable information, such that you can stake a believable claim one message is more informationally dense than another.
Technobabble unrelated to proving your point. You undercut yourself in your last paragraph when you indicate the system is so complex we may never master it.
You left out a key point. Not only is the DNA code complex, but there is no way to know what changes might be useful or required in the future. Making changes in the genetic code is like playing the stock market. You might know every thing there is to know about placing orders, but you do not know the future.
If a designer knew every lever and cog in DNA he could still not design a successful ecosystem without including a mechanism for random variation and selection. The needs of a population change in unpredictable ways when environments change and competitors adapt.
Considering that we see in nature profligate overproduction of offspring, random variation, bloody heaps of wastage and selection, everything needed for Darwinian evolution is in place -- right now, not in the forgotten past.