Hi,
It is possible to prioritize the featured products, but it’s only possible within the Pro version as it requires the priority groups feature. Luckily no coding is required whatsoever. Here is a detailed step-by-step tutorial with screenshots on how to set it up exactly. If you need help, let me know and I will set it up for you.
You can actually import your settings from the lite version. Most of the settings import should be seamless, it’s not perfect as there are differences in the two versions, but it should do the trick.
If you need help with setting up specific styles as you had it in the Lite version, let me know, I can very likey help with it.