> Seems to me the sun is highest several hours after noon and midnight is closer to sunset than sunrise.

The definition of noon is when the sun is at its highest point. Yes, due to timezones real noon may be half an hour from clock noon — but that's all (modulo places which are on a neighbouring timezone for reasons; regardless, being more than 1½ hours from real time is political stupidity).

Are you in China? I understand the PRC believes that all Chinese should be on Beijing time — c.f. above, under political stupidity.

> Humans already don't plan their day strictly around sunlight.

For maximum health & energy efficiency, though, we probably ought to (just like we probably ought to build our houses so that air conditioning is optional & heating is efficient).

I would argue they still plan according to the sun. Why have most westerner cultures slowly adapted to a 9 - 5 schedule when older generations used to work 8 - 4? Daylight savings slowly convinced society to start the work day 1 hour later.

Summer time is on average further off from solar time.

For instance normal time is pretty close to solar time when you're around Berlin.