[Rduke55]

I think that a lot of yours, Dawkins, and Jones' comments are concerning our difficulties putting organisms into groups, both currently and across their evolutionary history. This doesn't mean to me that there aren't groups.

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it is still 'just' a major constraint on their future path

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This is an understatement. It can be considered the major constraint on their future path. Again, just because it is hard for us to define and that there are transitional groups now does not mean that it's not a real distinction.

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where rings species and hybrids didn't occur

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But these are essential to the formation of species. Just because something goes from point A to Point B gradually does not mean that those two points aren't different things.

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will the driving force in their evolution be the environment or the isolated gene pool.

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Both, with varying strengths depending on population size, etc.

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I asked "have I created two species by splitting them" because they certainly can't interbreed to try and bring down interbreeding to the constraint that it is.

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But they can interbreed - they just can't now because they are separated. What you've done here is give them a better opportunity to speciate.

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I 'spose a nutshell of the two positions is that I think evolution could be studied without the concept of species at all

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It would be radically different with much, much less explanatory power than what we have now.