Inherent in the editor trying to "get the very best researchers to [review] the paper" is likely to be a leak of signal. (My spouse was a scientific journal editor for years; reviewers decline to review for any number of reasons, often just being too busy and the same reviewer is often asked multiple times per year. Taking the extra effort to say "but this specific paper is from a really respected author" would be bad, but so would "but please make time to review this specific paper for reasons that I can't tell you".)
I didn’t read the comment to mean the editor would explicitly signal anything was noteworthy about the paper, but rather they would select referees from a specific pool of experts. From that standpoint, the referee would have no insight into whether it was anything special (and they couldn’t tell if the other referees were of distinction either).
The editor is already selecting the best matched reviewers though, for any paper they send out for review.
They have more flexibility on how hard they push the reviewer to accept doing the specific review, or for a specific timeline, but they still get declines from some reviewers on some papers.
I know that’s the ideal but my original post ends with some skepticism at this claim. I’ve had more than a few come across my desk that are a poor fit. I try to be honest with the editors about why I reject the chance to review them. If I witness it more than a few times, they obviously aren’t being as judicial at their assignments as the ideal assumes.
