Ryan,
I understand what you mean; in the previous Desktop edition, everything is drawing on an image and there is no markers and popups etc. I think the difference using marker and layer is similar like using Shapes and visual in Wpf. For example, Visual is a lightweight drawing in Wpf, it only allows drawing a vectors on an image source. While Shape is different, it doesn’t only allow draw vectors on the canvas, but also you can have some styles and event cooperate with it. So marker works like a shape while layer works like visual.
You might ask which is faster, I would say the light weight one; in another word, layer draws faster of course if we draw the same amount of vectors. But when we refresh the layer, the whole image will be redrew again but the marker only needs to change it’s position.
So to choose when to use marker or layer, I world say when your vector data is huge to render; don’t hesitate to use layer; when some point data need to use animation, tooltips, events etc what a control does, choose marker.
Thanks,
Howard