For some shoots, there are a couple photos that I really like and would like to make stand out for my visitors.  The tricky thing is that I would like for these to stand out from the rest of the images, but not at the expense of the other images.  This second point is why a Collection wouldn't work for this: at any given time, a viewer is looking at the Collection or the Gallery, but not both.

One way to visualize the sort of feature I'm looking for is a version of the "Featured Galleries/Collections" thing that appears on the homepage.  Those Galleries are visually set off, but someone who isn't interested can still click on all the other galleries directly beneath.  For my purposes, instead of being a group of Galleries on the homepage, though, it'd be a group of images in a Gallery or Collection.

Thanks,
--xsdg

Have you thought about making a Group that has a gallery and a collection in it?  Something like a "Client Name Here" Group, have a "Client Name" Gallery, and a "Photographer Favorites" collection.