I have a suggestion that of course fills my need, but may be of use to others. I suggest creating a new placeholder for creating hyperlinks. Something like this may fit the bill:
<$link:destination;title>It should also support embedded placeholders so that an image can be used in place of link text like so:
<$link:destination;<$img:image>>As an example, such a placeholder could be used to display a map location and create a link to an external map or perhaps a coordinate conversion tool.
In Scrivener text, an example would look like this:
San Francisco, CA (37.7756,-122.4190) <$link:http://maps.google.com?ll=37.7756,-122.4190&z=12;”View Google Map”>which on compile becomes…
San Francisco, CA (37.7756,-122.4190) View Google Map
Or in another example:
San Francisco, CA (37.7756,-122.4190) <$link:http://maps.google.com?ll=37.7756,-122.4190&z=12;<$img:MapIcon>>Becomes
San Francisco, CA (37.7756,-122.4190) 
You could also use compilation replacements to further simplify this using the replacement like thus:
Replace: GMap($@)
With: ($@) <$link:http://maps.google.com?ll=$@&z=12;<$img:MapIcon>>
Which reduces the writing to just this entry
San Francisco, CA GMap(37.7756,-122.4190)Resulting in the same output as before.
San Francisco, CA (37.7756,-122.4190)
For long lists, like might appear in an appendix, this significantly reduces the writing burden to a few characters per entry and produces a nice result.
Another use might by to pull in information from a custom metatag and use that to form a hyperlink similar to this:
San Francisco, CA GMap(<$custom:latlong>)Or even:
<$link:http://maps.google.com?ll=<$custom:latlong>&z=12;<$img:MapIcon>>In my current situation, I generate a couple hundred of these using a spreadsheet, then go back on each one, cut the url, select the link text, and manually add link to each one. A link placeholder would eliminate this step.
Thanks, and keep up the good work.
Chuck