Your description of evolution seems confused. That confusion is confirmed by your apparent association of evolution with the beginning of life by your phrase "causation by pure chance, accident, or random agglomeration of 'smart matter' that suddenly becomes 'potent'".
Evolution of species is an entirely different thing from the beginning of life, and certainly a different thing from the beginning of the universe. Biological evolution *requires* reproduction with occasional "errors", in combination with survival pressures. Unless life already exists, and those things occur, then you're not talking about biological evolution but something else.
Your sentence: "this assumes that it is true that phenomena must have "rational" causes. (As opposed to causation by pure chance". "Random chance" is a rational phenomena. The most purely "random" thing that can be observed is the rate of detection of background cosmic radiation, a purely rational source. The results of a throw of dice is "random", yet rational. A "random accident" where lightning strikes your house and burns it down is also rational.
Philosophy is an interesting hobby, but it can easily lead the practitioner to confusion about reality. In discussing ID and evolution, it is better to stick with the apparent reality and avoid speculating about far fetched philosophy. The philosophy is not only confusing to ones self, but is further confused by attempting to communicate the concepts. No doubt my writing here will be interpreted by the reader differently from my original meaning. Questions, objections, and errors seen in this post are more often errors in the communication process, not in the original meaning. So keeping things simple, allows better communication, and has a closer association with reality.
Jeepers, narby, I think I understand the problem of communication that you and I seem to be having.
You seem to want to "slice and dice" the universe into manageable bites (in a manner perfectly accordant with the increasing specialization of science, as fine-tuned to suit the Darwinian exegesis when needed); and I want to find the root and reason of the whole, that is to say the entire physical universe, together with whatever "beyond" it may have; for that may very well be where its cause subsists.
You can look at individual trees all day long, and never get a glimpse or an inkling of the forest....
Might as well 'fess up: Science is due for a rational critique from the "philosophy side" of the Great Cartesian Divide....