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["The Emergence and Early Evolution of Biological Carbon-Fixation, Braakman et al, PLoS Comp Bio 2012; "Ancestral lipid biosynthesis and early membrane evolution", Peretó et al, TRENDS in Bio Sci 2004.]
A persistent metabolic core then. But if early stromatolites were indeed photophilic, an early anoxic photosynthesis may have evolved.
It would have liberated cells from local redox sources like hydrothermal vents without much specialization. It is relatively easy to evolve for both protection and energy source (many compounds works), and the low level of light required would fit deep habitats with surface UV (no ozone).
While it is true that comparative methods not take us back to the first cells, I note that they have penetrated deep. Protein fold family work has covered the DNA UCA as well as the RNA/protein world before it.
By a fold clock proxy the RNA/protein world was ~ 20 % of time, the DNA UCA period ~ 20 %, and the diversification into the domains of modern cells the rest. So much of the ancestral 50 % of cellular history is still covered. (But at increasingly lower resolution of course.)
["The evolution and functional repertoire of translation proteins following the origin of life", Goldman et al, Biol Dir 2010; and similar works.]