Jazzlover, you might want to actually check the accuracy of the statements you've pasted above. I'm only going to deal with the
Staphylococcus aureus beta-lactamase part. I suggest you check out this link
The Faculty of Medicine
It gives you further information on beta-lactamases, what they do, how many are known and the fact that they are thought to have evolved from cell wall-building proteins in bacteria called penicillin-binding proteins. It will also direct you to other sources so that you can find out alot more about them.
You state, or your source does;
An example is the loss of control over the production of an enzyme that happens to break down penicillin in Staphylococcus aureus, resulting in the production of greatly increased amounts of the enzyme and thus conferring resistance to penicillin
In actual fact I think you'll find that beta-lactamase is produced in addition to any protein it may have evolved from such as penicillin-binding proteins. Additionally, in some bacteria the prodution of beta-lactamase is constitutive i.e., switched on all the time and in others its inducible i.e., it only switches on production when penicillins are present. For a gene to be inducible it not only has to have the protein-coding region,it also has to have a promoter, upstream of the start site of the coding region, which then allows transcription to start. The promoter has to be tied in some way to the conditions under which production of the enzyme is required. So somehow the message that the outside of the bacterium has encountered penicillin has to be transmitted to the inside so that the promoter can be activated. How on Earth can a system which involves this sort of message pickup, message transfer and action on message be described as a loss of control? That is simplistic at best and downright misleading at worst.