Sorry for the slow response - I was away over the end of the year.
The idea of starring answers so they’re easier to surface is interesting. I’m not fully convinced it would work well with the current search experience. A single thread can have multiple starred answers, and since search today only lives in the secondary sidebar, it’s hard to see how those would naturally show up there. I also imagine users would want a quick overview of all starred answers within a thread, which would likely require a dedicated space for browsing, previewing, and managing them.
We have ideas for highlight tool concept, but in a slightly different and more granular context. That direction could potentially solve this use case as well, especially combined with some of the editing ideas we’re exploring - helping users clean up conversations and keep only the most important parts.
I’ll bring this up for internal discussion.