Great post,I've got bachelor degree of biochemistry (it is fascinating branch of science and it's so big that it took me real hard work to understand it myself + there are so much more waiting to be discovered yet) and i do agree on every aspect of RNA-self replication,formation of ribosomes with proteins.The main question for scientists was what is the first thing that came to be, egg(DNA) or the chicken(protein), but it's actually that is 1st RNA came to be in the 1st archaic form of life with the last common ancestors,cause it has so much functions and it is less thermodynamiclly stable than DNA,and cause of that stability RNA probably served as both for replication and protein synthesis,and later cause of both the environment and the conditions was in particular(the very soup which was basiclly the laboratory of life),it undergoes the thermodynamic changes in RNA causing it to fold and to form many hydrogen bonds and non covalent interactions which in turn stabilize the tertiary 3D structure of RNA in whole, enabling molecule to do the catalytic reactions for which we are thankful today(storing the genetic information and replicating that information from generation from generation+enable it to be in terms of survival to update and repair the RNA/DNA from harmful mutations,forming the enzymes with do the most catalytic reactions today(protein enzymes do the work in anabolyc and catabolic transformations like energy production and synthesis of other biomolecules(lipids,carbohydrates,proteins and NTP,while RNA enzymes have strictly catalytic functions in maintaining the core of the cell machinery) ),translation machinery and coupling with proteins to form ribosomes :).I hope i didn't gave an headache :)