One of the issues to keep in mind with tracking grid selections is that you can keep items as selected even though you have moved on to another page.
The default behaviour for the DataGrid in the client is to drop the selection list after invoking a MicroFlow. This is done because there is no way to guarantee the consistency of the selection list after arbitrary actions have been performed on the server. For example,
In addition, the requirements in use cases we've encountered thus far have matched this behaviour. For adding new behaviour I'd suggest filing a feature request. Your question documents the case nicely, so for the most part you can probably just copy/paste it into the description.
The problem is indeed annoying, and occurs in template grids as well. I suggest filing a bug report for it in the partner portal.
(Note that the explorer pane from the appstore does remember the selection while sorting, however it might not suit your case, for example it does not support paging).
I am also facing the issue. Is there any work around or feature request for this issue?