Literal or figurative, that is the question...
I have wrestled with this for a long time, and while I tend to take the Bible more literally, there are certainly things in the Bible that are not intended ot be taken that way (parables for example). I recently wrote a paper on the subject and may share that at some point, but I don't want it to sway your oppinions.
JC, you make some good points. Now allow me to address some of the things you stated...
***>Flat evolution- Um.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I take the 7 days literally. Why would God take eons and then tell us it only took 7 days? I think he did it so rapidly do demonstrate his power. Then again, looking at it from the fact that he could've used just a millisecond... I'm not sure. Maybe it's arbitrary that I take it literally... AGH!***
I would agree here that God certainly doesn't need longer to create anything. A day is a day, and the authors of Genesis certainly knew how long that was. One thing to consider is the presence of hindsight in the authorship of Genesis. As a written account, Genesis happened much later than the events described in the first 11 chapters - add God's inspiration to that, and the authors would have a more clear understanding of that which they were recording. On the flip side, much of this had been passed down orally from the first family and may have been simplified - but then we have that God inspired thing again... If we start to write off portions of the Bible as figurative, where do we stop? Also, the rest of the Bible appears to take the accounts literally, even the New Testament authors, which tend to be taken much more literally by skeptics. Hmmm...?
***> Exact calculation based on genealogies- No... just no... There's no way it's that young. We have archaelogical evidence from earlier civilizations if I'm not mistaken.***
&
***> Gapped genealogies- We have gaps even in Christ's genealogy. Given the artistic liscence historians took, I'd imagine it's more than possible that generations were left out.***
It is true that we do find inaccuracies when dealing with the Old Testament geneologies. There are several inconsistancies between varying versions of the Old Testament (especially when you compare the Hebrew and Greek versions). It is clear that either the men of the Old Testament lived their lives to a round number most of the time, or there method of recording a lifespan was more general. We also know that geneologies in the ancient world often listed only the most memorable and significant members. If you follow the geneologies closely, you will see that records just drop off once a line starts to turn from God - it is as if the authors are not concerned with even talking about or mentioning the black sheep of the family. This could be largely due to the purpose and intention of the geneological accounts, which are more about God and less about providing future generations with a complete account of more than 2,000 years.
***> Our estimates suck- I don't know... I know there's something wrong with our estimates, but I'm not sure where the trendline breaks down. I'm not inclined to hop on it.***
Let's just say that many of the estimates on the age of the earth use faulty methods. Modern science is constantly discovering how off they have been. Consider carbon dating, the original method was used very heavily as a hard and fast method for dating things, until it was proven that it was highly inaccurate. There is now much newer methods but they too have their flaws. It is not uncommon for different labs to come up with totally different dates for items. Not to mention that carbon dating relies on the assumption that the levels of carbon in our world have remained constant over it's lifespan, which is highly unlikely and totally unproven.
***> Worlds, wines, and cheese- This one made me laugh, but then again... who knows? I just don't know if God liked the idea of a vintage Earth... I don't know alot Big surprise, eh? But thinking about it, I'd imagine that when God called back the waters from the Earth, we might've had a little erosion.***
It is true that the flood as it is described, with water from the heavens and under the earth would require a God moment of transformation and could account for mass erosion and plate shifting. Obviously the skeptics would say that this is just another account that should not be taken literally. That is why we have differing viewpoints on the Creation story, ranging from "it never really happened" to "it covered the entire earth" to "it was a localized flood to the world as the people of that time new it". Looking back at Adam and Eve, you could ask the question why God created them as adults... then considering all of the things on earth that depend on the aging process to thrive - it doesn't seem unrealistic to me to believe that God created the earth with a little character in order to sustain His very "creative" creations. What is the alternative - that God would have created a perfect sphere of land with perfect circles of water in various locations connected by perfectly straight lines of water and perfect clusters of trees and plants... etc.? A perfectly symetrical world would just be plain boring. Consider the complexity of the human body, which also cannot be explained by science, certainly God could have created us much more simply, but He didn't.
***> Mid-Creation siestas- Dontcha think God would've told us if he rested any time other than the 7th day?***
This is actually what is called the "gap theory". Many place it between the first and second days of creation. It is during this time that gap theorists believe we have the fall of Satan etc. The problem with some of these theories is their purpose. They are trying to understand and explain supernatural things in a way that human science can make sense of it. The fact is, the majority of reknowned scientists today are inclined to believe in a creation moment, whether by God or a big bang. This requires a supernatural moment in history and will never be explained by the human mind. Many people try to take the supernatural out of the Biblical account and explain it away with things like the gap theory. It seems pointless to me, since I do not believe that time, which did not exist before creation, does not impact the spiritual realms. So, trying to place Satan's fall within the days of Creation is kind of pointless anyway. (Oh, and I agree that God didn't need long periods of rest to finish His creations, in fact He didn't really need a day of rest either. I think that was his way of establishing the concept of a Sabbath from the very beginning.)
***> Theistic evolution- God doesn't need protozoa to do what his hands can. The Bible does not say, "God created plankton on the first day, and on the seventh day (A.K.A. 3 trillion years later) they miraculously sprouted legs, and God took the credit for it." Would a God who loved his creation so much leave it to random chance?
***
Here again we have people trying too hard to make human science and supernatural work together. Some people just find it necesary to make scientific theories, like evolution, fit into the Biblical account. There are motivations for this kind of thinking, scientists that find Christ but are not ready to let go of their "understandings" of the world, Christians that are trying to share Christ with critical students of modern science, and people that just find it necesary to figure everything out in a way they can wrap their small mind around.
You guessed it, most theistic evolutionists are guys 
Again, when it comes to evolution, the problem is that the entire process and principle is totally opposite the nature of God as we see recorded in His Word. Friedrich Nietzsche (and later Hitler) recognized that the moral implications of evolution threatened the Church because "only the strong survive". Add the fact that there still needs to be a creation moment, major evolution from species to species cannot be explained, and we haven't seen any evolutionary leaps in the recent past really makes the theory very inferior in my oppinion.
***P.S. Didn't they somehow prove the expanding universe thing?***
Due to the findings of the Hubble telescopes, they have determined that the universe is expanding. This then led to the "Big Bang" theory as they followed the expansion backwards and determined that at some point there had to be an excercise of energy that set the universe in an outward direction.
But then again, we also thought the world was flat at one point. So who knows what tomorrow's "best" human minds will believe. This concept does raise some questions though:
> What created the initial matter?
> What caused the initial explosion?
> Where is the center of the universe (which should be able to be determined if they can prove the expanding universe theory)?
> Into "what" is the universe expanding? (Since it is the nothingness of space that is expanding, there would have to be a larger realm into which this "nothing" is expanding. Is the heavenly realm?)
Great thoughts JC and Mitch, keep the wheels turning. Hopefully we get more people to share their thoughts as well.
Big surprise, eh? But thinking about it, I'd imagine that when God called back the waters from the Earth, we might've had a little erosion.
