Roberto,
Thanks for your interests in Map Suite components. Hope my following answers can give you some hints.
1. Differences between Desktop edition and Wpf edition.
Difference1: In the Desktop Edition, we contains both winforms map control and wpf map control, while the WpfDesktop Edition only contains wpf map control.
Difference2: The wpf map control existing in Desktop Edition is not a native wpf map control, it can only be considered as a wrapper to be used in wpf application. So its performance should be quite a bit slow than the winform map control. While the WpfDesktop Edition map control is a native wpf map control.
Difference3:The WpfDesktop Edition map control introduced a new render mode called DrawingVisual, we can set it for each overlay. In this drawing mode, the drawing logic will use the wpf native drawing system instead of gdi plus.
Difference4:Even though the APIs between the two wpf map controls are very similar. We did make some enhancement on the native wpf map control both in API and in its functionality, such as some useful tools integrated, also from its running effects, the native wpf map control is much smoother than the original one because it support continuous panning.
I agree with you to keep Desktop Edition for standalone application and Silverlight version for on-line based one. I think both component can be consider for an standalone application, I prefer Desktop Edition if Winform application is targeted while Wpf Desktop Edition if wpf application is needed.
Any more questions just feel free to let me know.
Thanks.
Yale