Actually, Mike Gene and others are working on a testable model. He has this to say about ID and current evolution theory. He also proposes a testable ID hypothesis.
"It would seem abiogenesis would entail many bold predictions. It would entail that life is tied to geochemistry. But since all observed life forms are "highly evolved," it also predicts the existence of life forms not "highly evolved." That is, since cells are not a bag of solution, it would predict that cells were once a bag of solution. Since molecular machines (basic to life processes) supposedly evolved, it would predict that cells at one time had no molecular machines. Since DNA supposedly evolved, it predicts life forms without DNA. Since the genetic code was supposedly optimized by evolution, it predicts the existence of life forms with different codes. In short, abiogenesis predicts a myriad of life forms {including those with much simpler membranes and without proteins} that simply don't exist. These truly bold, and potentially powerful, predictions of abiogenesis are not backed up by observation.
Scientists did not expect life to be built around a highly optimized code. They did not expect life to be built around so many sophisticated and elaborate molecular machines. But they did expect to easily solve the origin-of-life puzzle after the Miller-Urey experiments. If life was not built around encoded information and sophisticated machines, and if the Miller-Urey type experiments did lead to nice theories/demonstrations of abiogenesis, I would not suspect design at all. A suspicion of design has led me to propose the following testable ID hypothesis:
The first life forms on this planet were a heterogeneous consortium of unicellular organisms that were products of advanced bioengineering and were used to seed the planet (Exogenous Seeding). Such seeding also front-loaded evolution, meaning that certain evolutionary trajectories were rigged.
This ID hypothesis posits that the first life forms on this planet were exogenous and rather sophisticated entities in contrast to the non-teleological hypothesis that posits simple, sloppy, quasi-life forms that were spawned from geochemistry.
The ID view is a stark contrast to the traditional ways of thinking about the Origin of life, namely, Endogenous Spawning / Earth Begets Life. Now, the ID hypothesis is not rooted in any notion that Endogenous Spawning "could not happen". Such a strong claim is simply not necessary (after all, have scientists ever established that Exogenous Seeding "could not happen"?) My opinion is that the evidential support for Exogenous Seeding is at least as well supported as the notion of Endogenous Spawning. In fact, I'd go even further and argue that the data better support the former hypothesis over the latter."
How would you propose examining first life forms?