I haven't been able to reproduce this behaviour on my machine, but I would recommend submitting this as a bug report at https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape . You'll probably get a faster response that way because bugs are being monitored very actively right now. You will need to specify: - which OS ? - which version of Inkscape ? - is it only the Star tool that causes a problem, do the other shapes like ellipse work properly ? - does this happen only with the map present, or do you have the same problem on a blank sheet with no map ?
with respect to the pasting, it will always occur exactly where the mouse is, so if you just clicked on a menu item, then that's where you'll get the star. To control the position of the paste, try using control-V on the keyboard so you can have the mouse where you like.