Gender nouns

Is there a point in nouns having a gender? I was always told it removes confusion, ironically the opposite is true for me anyway.

>doesn't even apply to animals

actually does, even cockroaches have a female form believe it or not.

>Any gender system is doomed to fail if it applies genders to things which don't have them.

Going to have to disagree with that part.  Yes, it makes more sense if you apply genders to things that can actually have genders, but it's not absolutely necessary.  If you think of it as just another arbitrary language rule as a way of disambiguating elements in a sentence and making pronouns, adjectives, etc. clearer in what they are intended to be associated with: it actually makes a lot of sense.  The mistake I believe that has been made is associating this essentially arbitrary rule (lilacs having a gender, for example) with genders in the first place.  Replace the name with something else and you have a perfectly viable ruleset.