Distinguishing Characters

[Koen G]

There is an evolutionary gap between substitution ciphers and more advanced ciphers/codes that the Voynich fills nicely.

I'm not sure if this is the best way of putting this given the current state of our knowledge. It suggests that the Voynich cipher (if we assume it is one) is a conscious attempt to make substitution ciphers more difficult to crack. Wouldn't we expect such innovation in a different context, i.e. politics, espionage, military...? The Voynich just appears to be a different beast altogether, at least I wouldn't place it in any kind of evolutionary or hierarchical scheme.