Chemicals are inanimate things - one can no more say of them that they are dead or alive than one can say the same thing of a coffee table. Apparently the CSHP writers have not bothered to acquaint themselves with even elementary articles on the origin of genetic material. But in any case, the suggestion that it is unreasonable to believe that life arose without a creator just because of the complexity of a cell is quite unfounded. The CSHP writers seem to be clutching at straws, drawing more and more upon arguments from personal incredulity, without bothering to back up their claims. Kathleen Hunt's Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ contains more transitional fossils than a creationist can shake a stick at.
Intermediates tend to be better suited to their immediate environments than non-intermediates.
Once again, and argument from personal incredulity. Every biology textbook I have seen has discussed the advantages of sexual reproduction over asexual reproduction for increasing genetic diversity. Matt Ridley's The Red Queen presents a good discussion of the evolution of sex in layman's terms. Chemotrophic behavior could sustain such organisms as well as it sustains many organisms today. Certain organisms become progressively more dependent on one another over time.