Gee put it pretty well in your quote:
"Neither does this mean that fossils exhibiting transitional structures do not exist, nor that it is impossible to reconstruct what happened in evolution."

Although Gee is a believer, it has nothing to do with religious faith. This is a matter of science and scientific evidence.

We know that Lucy was transitional because of the mosaic of characteristics exhibited in the fossil. The Isreali scientists you quoted found that Lucy's species was transitional toward the Australopithecus robustus.

A. afarensis is transitional. No one here has claimed that this species is in the direct line to man, nor did the Gee quote address A. afarensis at all. You are stretching a quote to try to refute a position that none of us have taken.