Charles Darwin originally proposed sexual selection to account for the maintenance of biological traits that provide no apparent survival benefit to a population, traits like the peacock's extravagant plumage. In more recent times, the Handicap Hypothesis (the idea that males signal their genetic quality to females by their ability to support showy displays) has been presented as a rationale to explain the origin of such counter-intuitive strategies within the larger Darwinian model of fitness. But prominent critics within the evolutionary community continue to be skeptical of this explanation and theoretical challenges are serious. I review two prominent studies of female preference for ornamentation and propose follow-up research that I believe might experimentally test the Handicap Hypothesis. Within a creationist model, the persistence of such "exaggerated" traits might also seem to be problematic. I hypothesize that there is an underlying genetic mechanism designed to maintain these traits that are "beautiful" but appear to handicap the species. The variability of female trait preferences hints at a complex genetic linkage, balancing the maintenance of beauty against the maximization of survival. This is a hallmark of design. This hypothesis of genetic linkage could be tested in the near future as genetic mapping tools become more precise and powerful.