Thanks for sharing this feedback. The experience you’re describing with ansible-test’s UX for collections is a known issue with a specific historical context.
The tool was originally designed to test ansible-core, not collections. As occasionally mentioned here for sometime, the long-term plan was for ansible-test to remain focused on core, with a separate tool emerging for the collection ecosystem.
We’ve made significant progress toward that plan, resulting in the ansible-development-tools (ADT) suite and all of the individual tools it includes. (On a side note, I was happy to see your comment that the ansible-dev-environment (ADE) package helped you massively; I think it’s an incredibly valuable and often overlooked tool.) Tools from this suite, particularly Molecule, are specifically designed for testing collections and roles.
I feel that the gap you’re experiencing is that the community documentation hasn’t fully caught up to this shift. It still directs users to ansible-test, which leads to the friction you mentioned. With an overhauled Molecule nearing completion, it might be a good time for the community to discuss updating the documentation to recommend Molecule as the standard tool for collection testing. Doing so could provide a clearer path and UX for developers.