The thing that gets most paleontologist's panties in a wad is when you mention that they have never found any form of itermediate fossil. There have been many T-Rex skeletons found, for example, but no skeletons that are "almost" T-Rex.

You obviously haven't met a real paleontologist or seen a paleontological collection (research collection, not museum one). There are hardly any fossils exept 'intermediate' ones. Almost everything paleontologists find (except perhaps most common and stable species like some mollusks) is 'almost this' or 'somewhat like that' or 'between A and B'.