This gets a fair bit of discussion, most recently in
this thread I think.
It does seem to be by design that not absolutely everything you can click pops up when you highlight, which bugs some players. Personally, I think that would make sense in a game where the idea was to encourage the player to interact with everything they could. But given BG3 seems to be aiming for the illusion that (like the real world) there's just tons of stuff there that you could interact with if you wanted, but generally wouldn't bother with, and I've come to find that more immersive.
But I'd still at least like what the highlight key shows to be consistent in some way, eg to highlight containers with usable/equippable items or items over a certain value, or items it requires a perception check of n to spot, where n is your party's maximum passive perception or
something that seemed to make sense. In early access, if there are hard and fast rules, I've not worked them out.
But given that there has been much feedback on this point over the course of early access, it's possible that this will change in a few weeks when the game releases!
