I've had my fair share of highlighting/annotating shenanigans with macOS built-in software and I've found Skim (free, BSD licensed) to be a highly competent replacement, with the only caveat that you have to remember to export the annotated PDFs if you want to be able to see your changes from any other application.
Anyone tired of Apple's contrast-killing orangey background and missing a true yellow color for their highlights should give it a try. (No affiliation, just glad it exists.)