At the moment Test status is entirely arbitrary, and there is no official way to decide whether a side is worthy of it or not.
Status itself is a silly thing that shouldn't have the kind of power it does in cricket.
It was also a slower process than you're making it out to be. Their team was it its peak around 2001. That's a decade after they were considered good enough to play Tests, and was essentially the second good era. The only reason the next era turned out bad in comparison was because of circumstances out of their control. How would our cricket fare if all our best players left, the sport lost all its money and its stucture got torn apart?
