Such affectations were not really synonymous with Benaud. He was self-effacing - once telling the story of a small boy at the SCG in the 1980s who asked in all innocence: "Did you play for Australia?" Benaud allowed he had, musing on the fleeting nature of fame as the boy ran off, saying: "I thought you were just a commentator."
Benaud's opinions in the commentary box were all the more telling for being rationed so tightly. He was one of the great practitioners of silence, letting the moment speak for itself; a devotee of the old-school broadcasting maxim that you never insulted the viewer by describing what they could see for themselves. But if Benaud analysed a game/tactics/bowler/batsman, it was gospel.
Some have called him the voice of cricket. The BBC's John Arlott, with his Hampshire burr, probably wins that one with maybe his finest quote attributed to the time when a West Indian batsman smashed an England delivery at the Oval for six. Arlott lost sight of the ball when it left the bat at supersonic speed but did not flinch: "Oh, that is a superb strike, the ball is high, high in the air; ladies and gentlemen, it has left the ground, it is bouncing down Kennington High Street, past a No 9 bus and into the doorway of Woolworths where it is fielded by a lady in a red coat." All complete fiction but the stuff of genius; sport with humour and poetry.
If he wasn't the voice, Benaud was certainly the global face of cricket in the TV age. He was loved in England for his part in the BBC's Test Match Special and not too many Aussies can say that.
It was with Channel Nine's Wide World of Sports that he really made his mark in this part of the world. He was the first effective player to make the switch to commentary - and still the best. His professional training, in print and broadcasting, plus his natural calm and shrewdness, quickly earned credibility.
Benaud, with Tony Greig, Bill Lawry and Ian Chappell, built a commentary style of renown. There was some rampant nationalism - but usually Benaud perched comfortably on the fence, his analyses laced with insight, never with jingoism.
Which brings us to Nine's commentary these days. We copped a bit of it during the Cricket World Cup but for non-Australians, the unexpurgated cheerleading is often too much to take; the Benaud brake is missing.
Opponents are dealt with only in passing; they are mere limp leaves of lettuce compared to the sumptuous steak of Australian cricket Nine knows its viewers want for dinner, blood running down their chins.
God knows, we in the media know all about the necessity of attracting an audience but this is the bulimia of cricket commentary.
It's a steady diet of wonderment at Aussie brilliance followed by a vomit of old pals gathered in the commentary box, their jokey-blokey- nickname-using joshing reminding us how long Australia have been on top of world cricket.
And they have been; we just don't need to hear it so often. It might be good to hear more insightful analysis in place of what sometimes seems motivated by the need to tell the audience the commentators also played for Australia.
Shane Warne can be insightful when he's not being a bogan and Chappell is a kind of elder statesman. But get them all together - "Warney", "Tubby", "Slats", "Heals" et al - and it's like schoolboys telling toilet jokes.
Proof of Benaud's greatness was that he was good-heartedly skewered by comic Billy Birmingham in his classic Twelfth Man albums taking off the commentary team for years. But you can't parody Warney, Heals and Tubs ... they do too good a job of it themselves. Richie Benaud was, as his signature line suggested, "Marvellous!"
