That helps me understand it a bit better, but it doesn't seem to solve the exact problem I am talking about.

1) I have all my objects visible with edges not shown.
2) I hide one of the named object.
3) I now want to turn the edges on for JUST the visible objects, but when I click on the edges to show edges it shows the edges for the object that is currently hidden. This is the behavior I am trying to avoid, I want it to show the edges for just the objects that are visible. I thought the shift click would be what I was looking for but when I tried it nothing happened.

I guess I kind of understand why it is like this from your previous post, but it is not the behavior I would expect or desire for 90% of situations.