I think the importance of organocatalysts besides being potentially less "harsh" is that they can also be more selective in what reactions they allow, which wou

I think the importance of organocatalysts besides being potentially less "harsh" is that they can also be more selective in what reactions they allow, which would be important in getting to those polymers. For example most of the amino acids in biology are L-enantiomers. So the reaction in the primordial soup would require catalysts which would bias towards that specific shape, where as a metalocatalyst may be less specific and generate both the L and R enantiomers at equal or near equal rate. Also it could also be that metalocatalysts generate side products at a higher rate such that it consumes say some of your amino acids unhelpfully. So you may be able to think about it as an intermediate step of metals->organocatalysts->polymer catalysts. Full Disclosure: Am not a chemist but work with chemists, one of which follows MacMillan closely. And have sat through a lot of presentations looking at how different catalysts affect selectivity of products.