this is a big deal to me, because I can't stand the use of "evolved to ___" because to my understanding, evolution comes from random mutation, which means mutation happens, and things don't evolve towards any specific purpose. But if they do, then I can stop feeling hostile towards that phrase.

You can evolve to stop feeling hostile towards that phrase!

Evolution is change but not necessarily progress, i.e. organisms adapt to changes in their environment, but a modern organism might be ill-suited to the environment eons ago. IOW, evolution isn't a linear track to some Platonic ideal. Something can evolve in order to be better adapted to its environment, but there's no intention to evolution beyond survival of the fittest at a particular time and place.

Or as I like to put it, Nature tries everything.

That's exactly what I mean, I think.

I often hear things phrased like "Humans evolved sweat glans in order to keep cool in desert environments."

I'd assume that sweat glads happened and animals (etc) that had them were able to better deal with crossing desert environments and thrive in new habitats, but they didn't evolve something to deal with something. They evolved something and it gave them an advantage etc.

No? It's entirely possible I'm dated.

No, that's basically right. That's natural selection.

Groups do "evolve to _____". They evolve to environmental fitness, for example. And yes, it is natural selection through the environmental effects on random mutations (cf. "Ain't Ma Nature a Bitch?!!") but the primary purpose of life appears to remain alive. Dawkins argued that the primary purpose of life is to spread the gene— I'd say that the gene has done a really good job of making that personal.

Yeah, what he said.