Hi Scott,
I'm not sure if this will be ready in 4.7. I should point out that Feature Layers in a Map View can be highlighted if webGL is used to render them. This capability is marked as beta, you can read more about it here (including how to enable it): FeatureLayer | API Reference | ArcGIS API for JavaScript 4.6
If this isn't an option, I think your best bet would be to watch the "selectedFeature" property on the popup: JS Bin - Collaborative JavaScript Debugging
Using that approach, you'll have to decide how to highlight each geometry type. In that sample, a new polygon is added that outlines the feature returned from identify that is currently shown in the popup. For point geometries, you'd probably want to highlight things a little differently. Here's another SDK sample that shows how you might approach highlighting a point: ArcGIS API for JavaScript Sandbox (click on a feature to highlight).
As far as the difference between selecting a feature and clicking on it, if you watch the "selectedFeature" property, you're just assuming whatever feature the popup is currently displaying is selected. You can manually add features to the popup (and therefore select them) as in the identify sample, using popup.open: Popup | API Reference | ArcGIS API for JavaScript 4.6. Or, depending on the layer and what kind of search you want to perform on click, you could take advantage of the built-in popup functionality, like this: JS Bin - Collaborative JavaScript Debugging.