I have almost got a workable solution, except for the alignment.

It looks like the value template is positioned with the top left hand corner at the symbol origin. I need to show the data template centered on the origin, setting HorizontalAlignment & VerticalAlignment appears to have no effect. Is there a way to adjust the alighnment?

Hi dmurraylaing,
By default, if MapElement's SymbolOrigin hasn't been set, the ValueTemplate will be centered according to the element's WorldRect.

However, to apply explicit positioning, you could use the following approach:
private void MapLayer_Imported(object sender, Infragistics.Controls.Maps.MapLayerImportEventArgs e)
        {
            if (e.Action == MapLayerImportAction.End)
            {
                xamMap1.Layers["MapLayer"].ValueTemplate = LayoutRoot.Resources["placeSymb"] as DataTemplate;

                MapElement mapEl = xamMap1.Layers[0].Elements["Russia"].First();
               
                Point p = new Point(104.4140625, 62.59334083012024);
               
                mapEl.SymbolOrigin = xamMap1.MapProjection.ProjectToMap(p);
            }
        }
where placeSymb is the ValueTemplate, defined few forum posts above.

Best regards,
Milana Zhileva