I really think given NI's support, it would make a lot of sense to stick with what they have available. Rolling your own sounds like a big undertaking and while I really enjoy owning my own tools, the time and effort needed in building, deploying and supporting them just doesn't seem like a good idea. Especially on a thing that involves testing code components.
Sorry to hear the NI solution is slow but because you have a license you should be able to get some support from NI to investigate this, or at least get some feedback from them.
JKI's timing for their VI Tester was unfortunate. I felt bad for them when I heard the Unit Test Framework was coming out in what felt like a few months after the JKI one. As a result I get the feeling JKI is focusing their attention on other tools that they have a competitive advantage with.