Personally I never really saw the point of reminders on the V+ (and was always getting irritated when I accidentally got the Set Reminder screen up and had to get out of it again
).
I always thought one of the points to a PVR was to put control of your viewing habits into your own hand, and to (start to) take control away from the broadcasters schedules. Easy solution is to simply record everything (as others have said), watch the recording 'as live' and remove it afterwards. That way you can watch it when your ready to watch it, not when the broadcaster says you should watch it.
In the example of the 6 O Clock news, if your not ready (for whatever reason) until 6:01 then it becomes the 6:01 news, or the 6:02 news etc - its at your control (all we need is the time machine and we can have the 5:59 news option!).
In the example of the cricket, if you miss the first few overs, just watch the recording from the beginning, and if theres a break in play, fast forward to catch up - its only a problem if you have an alternative live feed available as the scores won't match.
At the end of the day though, its a case of Each to their Own - everyone has their own preferences.