It still fades too fast, and there's no way to bring up a chat log (other than maybe opening the console? I haven't tried). Quite often I'll spot something being said in the corner of my eye but I'm too busy trying to charge this assassin off the annihilator button, and when I do get a time to glance down to read it it's already gone. A key to show the last few chat lines would be great, or a traditional chat window even better. Personally I'd be all over a persistent chat overlay.
Yep..I pretty much always miss chat messages, so I find myself checking the console with the tilde key. Changing the mid-match chat text color to green (or something else that stands out) would help a ton.
If you do make it stand out more, please allow the option to remove it / make it less obnoxious. I personally like playing without seeing chat, sometimes.