The field of evolutionary biology uses confusing terminology that is partly responsible for that.
No, it's very straighforward. It's just technical. But if you wanted the definition of "resonance bonding" it would also be a bit difficult for those who don't know much about it.
Further, the definition you gave was not always the definition of evolution, and that causes some confusion as well.
True. But the original still works, although it's less precise. Darwin's "descent with modification" is still true as ever. But genetics tells us more about how that modification works.
I'm not familiar with how long that has been the consensus definition, but I don't recall it being used when I was in high school biology in the 1980s.
When I was studying biology in college, in the mid-60s, that was the definition. There are a lot of dumb biology teachers in high school, as well as an equal number of really good ones. Sorry about that.
The separation of abiogenesis from evolution was also a later development
No. It was that way from the start. Darwin assumed God created the first living things and described how populations of them changed over time. He never made the origin of life, part of his theory. He actually had no scientific idea. Since then, we've discovered a great deal about it. If you care about the details, you might look up
A New History of Life, which is fairly readable for a non-biologist, and covers what we've discovered so far.
In fact, I think you're the first I've heard at CF who refers to common descent as a consequence of evolution.
I spent a lot of years teaching evolutionary theory, so I had to know those things. BTW, even most creationist organizations are willing to accept a certain amount of common descent; they usually draw the line at families or orders, but sometimes go further.
I've been in many prior discussions that never get off the ground because I would insist on a clear definition of evolution, and I ended up with circular conversations where descent was part of the definition until it wasn't.
Hence, the need for a testable definition. You can use either of those I mentioned. The first was basic Darwinian theory, and the second comes from the New Synthesis, about 1950, when the rediscovery of genetics pretty much rescued Darwinism; it showed how the process of evolution works on a cellular level.