I've always been a test cricket fanatic too, the BBC's coverage of it though was very poor in my memory, although I sometimes still look back fondly at the high points forgetting the frustrations, cricket was very poorly covered even by the standards pertaining to the other developed playing countries especially Australia.
Those were the days of far less cameras, watching from behind the keeper every other over, interruptions for horse racing every 20 mins or trooping of the colour (a whole morning lost) and a far poorer analysis.
Australian broadcasting, highlights of the ashes down under at the time, showed it up for the poor standard it was, we could actually watch with a camera at both ends, and Channel 4 upped the standards of coverage and analysis quite markedly when they took over the broadcasting rights.
I fully agree highlights are an extremely poor substitute and only just better than a quick update at the end of the day, but it would give some recognition of the main protagonists at least, something you said you lacked.
While there's no comparison with test cricket, the longer form 50 overs game is slightly better and can be far more tactical than the hitting fest of T20. However I find no real connection between test highlights and either really, other than highlights are just what it says, the high points of the day condensed into an hour long program, but that's extremely loose indeed imo.
