Your translations/guesses are correct, "mala mala mala sunt bona" is afaik an invented phrase, not entirely unlike "I Vitelli dei romani sono belli" (which is bilingual Latin/Italian, meaning in italian "The calves of the Romans are beautiful" but meaning in latin "Go, Vitellio at the sound of the Roman war god") to trick/have some fun of Latin students, while "Soli soli soli" was a phrase sometimes inscribed on sundials.

Anyway, yes, the Merge and feature can work just fine outside of "toy models" the note was about about they soon becoming complex.