Admittedly, a one sentence explanation of identity was always going to be confusing (even assuming I didn't screw it up)

I pattern-match this to attributing agency to evolution?

Ah, no. I was saying that if a conscious brain didn't do anything useful, we wouldn't have a conscious brain. Survival of the fittest and all that. Therefore, the claim that our conscious selves have no control over our actions at all is silly. (unless our consciousness is merely an accidental by-product of something that does have a function... but that seems unlikely) There is indeed a difference between deciding an action freely and affecting it, which is why I ended with "it can be said that we have limited free will".

I appreciate the example, but I think the terseness here significantly lowers the informational value.

I appreciate the input you and others are giving me here. I agree that covering Free will in one paragraph is too optimistic. One post instead of 11, however, still seems quite reasonable to me.