I agree, the vykker's design is awesome!!

If Vykkers are genetically sculpted, why are they ill adapted to their environment and job? i.e. Legs that clearly need to be surgically altered, poor eyesight, fingers that are barely prehensile?

Maybe they eventually degraded from the use of modern "enhancing" technology.Since they don't rely on their own natural abilities but instead use science and technology, they eventually degraded.

you could explain the poor eyes with that theory (screens are bad for them, very baaaaad :p) and maybe the fingers

but that wouldn't explain the legs at all

Would it explain their fingers? I think it’s too big a morphological degredation. Since Vykkers were arboreal, my guess is that their long, thin digits/nails are adapted to reaching grubs underneath tree bark.

^I agree with Max's suggestion here. The legs I'd imagine were originally longer and more flexible, designed for gripping and swinging through tree branches, but as their brains developed for whatever reason (Naturally or through environmental changes), they began to undertake the medical profession, and for whatever reaso nfound their tree-dweller legs were unsuitable for thier new lifestyle, so amputated them. Over time I'd then imagine they will evolve to naturally posess shorter legs, much in the way we evolved fro mthe hairy caveman wh oneeded the hair for warmth, to modern man who doesn't need the hair to the same degree.

Except that if they all get their legs cut off there would be no advantage to having slightly shorter legs. So they would not evolve to anything specific. Just like how our immune systems are going to hell because Medical Science stops the human specimens from dieing out.

There would be an advantage for shorter legs because they would be closer to the ground meaning a lower centre of gravity so they could stand very still when operating and testing on fuzzles and stuff so they probably did amputate themselves.