Can でいる be used with inanimate objects?

Question

でいる can be analyzed as "stays (in the temporary state) as something", as per here. For example:

元気でいます。

I'm doing well (recently).

But notice that the subject of this sentence is an animate object (the speaker).

Question: Can でいる be used with inanimate things?

For example, I recently came across

成績も今までどおりトップでいることも大切だ

which seems to suggest that a student's grades (成績) are currently "sitting in the state of being in the top" (トップでいる). But grades are inanimate objects, and I thought いる wasn't supposed to be used with inanimate objects?

Possibilities:

1. でいる is meant to be used with animate objects, but 成績 is being "elevated" to having animate status here (for hyperbole or something)?
2. The sense of いる being used here ("sitting") is completely different from the normal いる ("existence for animate objects"), and so the normal "いる can only be used for animate objects" rule doesn't apply?
3. The subject of 成績も今までどおりトップでいる isn't actually 成績, but the speaker (who is an animate object). E.g. "Even with respect to my grades, I -- as usual -- am sitting at the top"?

Answer 1

Your third assumption is right. You can interpret it as 自分が成績がトップでいる.

Answer 2

“〜でいる” is simply the “〜ている” form of “〜だ” and the same rules apply and so it can very much be used with inanimate subjects, which I assume you mean here. For instance “建物は建っている。" for “The building has been built.” is completely fine.

The “〜ている” form of a verb has three main uses:

• progressive action of an action with no clear end to it “食べている” means “is eating” in practice, it can also mean “has eaten” in some select contexts but this is rarer.
• perfect resulting state of an action with a clear end to it. “結婚している” means “to be married” opposed to “結婚する” which means “to get married”; it can really never mean “to be getting married.” since to marry is an action with a clear defined endpoint that can't go on forever.
• “continuing to" or “keeping at”; this sense is with verbs that are already stative and the one you're looking at here. “〜だ” is not an action and “〜でいる” means something like “keep being”. In this case, the sentence means “It is also important that [your/my/his/etc] marks remain at the top too as they have been up till now.”, the “as they have been up till now” being the “今までどおり” part.

And yes, the line does suggest that they currently are at the top, but the use of the “〜ている” form here more so speaks to that it should remain this way. Again this form is completely agnostic to the animacy of the subject.