If he wanted honor he should have been amazed and satisfied with the honor that God had given him. But Saul was not content with the glory of God and the honor of being his chosen king. He wanted his own glory and his own praise. And the submissive path of obedience does not offer that kind of praise and glory. And so he did things his own way.
Disobedience is as the sin of divination.
Now we are on explicit textual ground. This is the very reason Samuel gives why disobedience is displeasing to God in verse 23. Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination. There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer.