To be inspired by something really has no bearing on how the _inspired_ thing is built. I think you place much emphasis on that but really it does not bring much to the argument. One can say that a plane was inspired by a bird (and it is, since we wouldn't to build one if we didn't see birds flying), but a plane is not designed like a bird.

I also somewhat contest that "interesting behavior comes from the emergent runtime interaction of tons of tiny components". There can be very tight, hierarchical structures to programs designed in the way Alan Kay talks about. He is promoting clear, manageable interactions, not emergent unpredictability, which is something I am sure you came across (we all did), but I would not go so far as describe the whole model of Kay as "fundamentally misguided". He talks of "clear fences", which can be understood to refer to things like "actor-based" models, with controlled, clear messages, as done in languages such as Erlang.