Re: Unfortunately...
"Everything else is speculation (though personally I favor a model that includes evolution via epigenetics, and catastrophic "jumps" rather than gradual ones,"
partly, "Punctuated equilibrium" is fact but so is gradual change over time, if environment gradually changes.
Wrong about epigenetics though. And no it isn't speculation. Our absolute knowledge, not theory, of how DNA works, and changes over time, explains evolution.