Very insightful thoughts and questions, by the way. A few initial thoughts I might give, in case helpful; I had a quasi-similar experience, though my younger background where YEC was presented gave me just enough of a critical mind when I went into my biology / biochemistry classes in college. I was completely open to understanding evolution and Darwinism, but I simply asked hard questions with a critical mind and ended up remaining a skeptic of Darwinian evolution.
That leads to my first question, if it isn’t a dumb question or if I don’t Sound like I am insulting your intelligence: but are you distinguishing between what is generally referred to as microevolution and macroevolution? There is hard and fast, observable, repeatable, testable evidence for what we call microevolution that is completely granted by all sides, including those who espouse young earth creationism. I just want to make sure you don’t make the mistake that I have occasionally seen people make, where they see that kind of evidence for changes overtime, and think that this kind of evidence is in direct conflict with biblical or even young earth creationist ideas.
I did experiments on fruit flies in the lab in my undergrad studies, and literally watched microevolution happening right before my eyes. But I personally remain utterly skeptical of is that natural forces by themselves given enough time random mutations, and natural selection, can eventually turn in amoeba into a dolphin. I don’t think this is controversial to say: but evidence for microevolution is indeed observable, testable, repeatable, and indisputable. Evidence for macroevolution (the ape ancestors becoming humans) is not of this kind. It is deduced or inferred from what we can test & observe, but it is not direct evidence in the same fashion - we can’t put them in a lab and watch the process repeat.
If you’re still wrestling with these questions in general, I’d encourage you to Explore other voices and other perspectives that have a similar critical eye. Hopefully not sounding too much like a fan, and hopefully approriate to recommend resources that are against Biologos’ own position here, but I have in general (with some exceptions) been rather impressed by those that align with the intelligent design movement. They tend to be very science focused, without letting their science be tainted by philosophical or religious commitments dash some of their participants are Jewish and agnostic as I recall… but they maintain a solid skepticism about blind darwinian forces not due to religious commitments but based on what they see in the science.
A second question - It is important to distinguish between guided evolution, and blind darwinian evolution. In fact, some of those who align with the intelligent design movement completely affirm almost all aspects of what we refer to as Darwinian evolution including that everyone has descended from single celled organisms. I believe Michael Behe is in this category (as, tentatively, CS Lewis appeared to be at times). He simply does not believe that blind, unguided, darwinian processes of natural selection choosing from random mutations is remotely a satisfactory explanation for the remarkable and perfect designs of biological machines, including us. Back when I was younger that is what generally was meant by theistic evolution - people that believed That evolution happened as commonly understood, but that God was very directly intervening in the process, accomplishing the remarkable design that blind nature could never have done by itself undirected or unguided. But given the various philosophical categories today, that puts Behe and those like him squarely in what we now call the “intelligent design” camp.
This I think is especially insightful, and I think you are actually quite correct. If God was not involved in the process in any direct way and our current existence is simply the end result of a blind, uncaring, unintentional random process, guided only by what factors happened to allow our ancestors to reproduce better or faster than their competitors, Then you are absolutely right. Are not special, there is nothing inherently different about us than an amoeba, and love, passion nobility, compassion, courage are all just randomly and unintended chemical processes, not categorically different than our urge to burp or scratch an itch. This is one of my biggest critiques about atheism in general.
But even if you do become convinced of evolution, you do not need to embrace the kind of evolution that insists that it is a blind, practically atheistic process. You can recognize that God actually and intentionally was working through it to design you to be just as you are, with all of the love, compassion, rationality, and all the rest that truly does indeed make you in his very intended image. Belief in macroevolution does not require you to embrace full fledged atheism.
Alternatly though, as it sounds like you’re still exploring all the options… as a minority voice of Scientific Darwinian Skepticism here on the biologos forum that people kindly tolerate (thanks everyone! 
), I would certainly encourage you to explore some of those other minority scientists such as those assoicated with intelligent design that are not simply forcing their science into the Bible’s literalistic words and categories, But who are recognizing serious problems with Darwinian evolution based on their examination of the science. If I may be permitted, the two first books in that topic I would recommend would be Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box” or Steven Meyers’ “Signature in the Cell.”
I share this simply to make sure you really are aware of all the various intellectual options - I say this as it sounds like it appears to you at present that there are only two options - YEC with all its potential problems, or full-fledged practically atheistic blind Darwinism. There really are options between those two extremes; an evolutionary creationism as many folks here espouse, that God was somehow undetectably behind the whole process, in such a way as you still are special, made in his image, and love and all the other noble human emotions really are good and real… and there also is the intelligent design option that, while not denying common descent or many aspects of evolution in general, still recognizes that our human complexity and design is simply of the sort that blind process just cannot achieve on their own.