Highlight state considation

This builds on #1729 and makes our language a lot more consistent. For my sanity.
Nothing is broken; the current change simply stops using the previously used optimization feature.
(Which does not result in any actual change, but it will, when we add smarter highlights. Then,
we will have to remember to look up and re-enable this, which would not be the case if we just
let this alone for now.)