We know from recent episodes that Chris has a family, he's a probably a father, so he may identify with Michael on two levels, both as a reminder of himself and as a parent. I'd say Chris and Snoop probably grew up in the type of homes we saw Randy get packed off to (we saw what it's done to him in only, what, a year?) it gives an indication of why they act like they do, you show weakness and you're dead in places like that. The thing with Michael really stuck with me, too, Chris knew what had happened and why he hated him so much as soon as he saw the look on Michael's face, nothing needed to be explained he just knew and he took care of it. It opened him up a bit and you wanted to know more, but as you say, can only speculate.
The thing with Rawls, I always wondered why he was put in that scene, and it might just be to give the viewer a bit more information on him, cos he's been there since day one and we basically know fuck all about the guy. He's definitely guarded, doesn't appear to mix well with the people he works with, never see him talking socially with people, perhaps him trying to stay in the closet is the reason why and the writers wanted to give that information to us, but not make a big deal out of it?