Edwin,
I'd like to reformulate my (above) reply. Though Lawrence Krauss, in his book ''A Universe From Nothing: Why there is Something Rather than Nothing'' argues that a big bang universe is a zero energy universe, this is certainly not the case. He reasons that, in a flat universe, the sum of the (negative) potential energy of galaxy clusters due to gravity between them equals the kinetic energy residing in their motion away from each other due to the expansion of the universe, so their sum must be zero as both energies depend in the same way on the mass of the galaxies. However, if the total energy at all times is zero, even at the mythical big bang, then it is hard to see how, why the particles (which supposedly, suddenly, mysteriously) were created at or shortly into the bang (before they contract to galaxies), would start to move apart at the bang. The fallacy of Krauss, of big bang cosmologists, is that they assume that fundamental particles have been provided (by whatever mechanism) with a definite, constant mass they retain in all eternity, as if it is a privately owned quantity, only the cause of interactions, so here mass does causally precede gravity -in which case the origin, the cause of mass can never be understood.
In contrast, as particles in a self-creating universe are cause and effect of their interactions, they acquire mass in an evolutionary, more or less gradual trial-and-error process. The point is that at least at the most fundamental (quantum) level, particle properties are interaction-dependent (contradicting the definition the dictionary gives for 'property'), that is, as relative quantities, in contrast to classical mechanics, in big bang cosmology and even in general relativity where it is thought of as an absolute quantity, something which but for practical difficulties can be measured even from without the universe, as if the meter, second, gram and joule are defined even outside of it, which of course they aren't. Though designed as a background-independent theory, I suspect that in regarding the mass of objects, the energy content of some area as absolute quantities, general relativity is contradictory at heart, never mind that it works so well in relatively weak gravitational fields.
Unlike a self-creating universe, a big bang universe necessarily has been created by some outside intervention, so I'm afraid that big bang cosmology, in regarding the universe as an ordinary object which, in our imagination can be inspected from without, as if looking over God's shoulders at His creation, represents an essentially religious view of our world. I think that it is impossible to exaggerate the damage the conceptual flaw big bang cosmology is based upon has wreaked upon physics: though cosmologists have done and do invaluable work in gathering observational data, I'm afraid that their interpretation is deeply flawed. The observational evidence in favor of the big bang largely rests upon whether we must conceive of the 'speed' of light as the velocity of light or that it just refers to a property of spacetime (which was the subject of my 2012 FQXi essay -topic 1328), and on the interpretation of the redshift of galaxies, which, as I argue in my website is much less unequivocal as presently is assumed.
I infer from your post that, like any physicist, you think about particles, fields and events inside the universe from an imaginary observation post outside of it. Though physics indeed has made awesome progress by doing so, the drawback is they we have come to regard particles as object which once created, keep existing even when isolated from interacting, as their continued existence doesn't require any effort on the part of the particles, as if 'to be' is a state, a noun, instead of the verb it is in a self-creating universe. Particles do not exist, have no physical reality to such outside observer, but only exist to each other if, to the extent and for as long as they interact, so I think it's time to try to understand their behavior, their properties from within the universe, from the point of view of the particles themselves, so to say.
As to the 'confinement' of quarks: if particles are both cause and effect of their interactions, of forces between them, a force obviously cannot be either attractive or repulsive*, always, so , as I argue in my website study (www.quantumgravity.nl), there indeed is no need for a new kind of force, for a strong force which is attractive, always. *Despite observations which appear to prove that, on the contrary, the electric force between charged particles, for example, is either attractive or repulsive, always - see my study.
I am, by the way, reading your interesting essay; it may take me some time to react.
Regards, Anton