From what I've read, GfS, there was no "radical jump from apes to sophisticated tool makers" (note that contemporary apes, like chimpanzees, use tools). The evolution of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMHs) in Africa was a long and complex (and still incompletely understood) story stretching over, at least, 8 million years. For details see Stephen Oppenheimer's "Out of Africa: The Peopling if the World" (2004). There were many "in betweens" but they all became extinct for the usual reasons why species become extinct. In fact WE almost became extinct at one point.

Existence is chock full of mysteries, unexplained phenomena and possibilities (do you think that I don't wonder about these things and speculate about them?) but I don't think that there's any merit in elevating mysteries and possibilities into facts without proof.