Game Idea: Collectable Monster Files

Modern PC equivalent of Monster Rancher. For those not in the know, Monster Rancher was a game where you could take any CD and use it to generate a monster. Then you'd train that monster and blah blah blah, we've played monster-raising games before. (Monster Rancher is good and semi-unique for other reasons it's worth your time blah blah, but that's not the part we're here for. We're here for the monster generation mechanic.)
I thought, "Hey, that's a neat mechanic. Take a physical thing and make it into a virtual thing, and then play with that thing." Then I thought, "I kind of want to play with a monster-generating algorithm like that". And then I thought, "Who the hell uses CDs anymore?"
So, modernizing/streamlining the idea, how about a game where you generate a monster from a file on your hard drive?

Ideas for implementation:

• Hash entire file into some value, use as random seed
• Use specific portions of the file / metadata to inform monster stats
• File extension <=> class (or more probably, file -type- <=> class)
• Have many common extensions actually mapped; so .png .jpg .jpeg .gif .bmp etc. are all recognized as 'image' types (and get the appropriate monster subclass off of that)
• Unrecognized extensions get hashed! Deterministically, so .lqfx3 files always come up the same kind of filetype
• Hash the file name as a whole to get the specific subtype of monster
• File size <=> 'weight'
• Higher health, lower speed. Or whatever stats make for good balance or interesting.
• Weight brackets. 0B-1KB = superlight, 1KB-1MB = light, 1MB-50MB = average, 50MB-750MB = heavy, 750MB+ = superheavy. Or whatever numbers make for etc.
• File age
• NOT file location; anything that determines the monster's information should come from the file itself, to 1) make the file feel like it holds a specific monster, and 2) so you can give friends file X because you want to share monster Y
• Some monsters are just better than others.
• This can come either from speciation (i.e. wolves > rabbits), or random numbers rolling higher.
• This allows for less homogenousness; don't have to balance wolves and rabbits, and/or don't have to balance all wolves (wolves would invariably value stat X the most, so any seed that gives higher X will be a better wolf anyway)
• This also allows for a sense of progression; you can't get -any- monster from the word go, so gameplay is extended and/or there's replay value or something.
• There's also incentive to hunt for the best monsters.
• Taking the idea further, files could also be adventuring areas.
• A file could be one or the other, and you would add files to your game world to get either new areas or new monsters. Add file -> game world expands. Neat, but can making getting monster1 awkward as you grope around for a file that will resolve itself into something useable.
• Directories would be dungeons, and you could explore subdirectories and go wild. Taking it to its logical extreme, the entire game world would be C:\

Don't know if I'm going to make or even work on this. What with the day job and all. Still, I do want to do sideprojects, and this seems neat. We'll see if this goes anywhere.