After many hours of climbing a steep learning curve, I have managed to complete an initial set of robotic services for the hardware controller.
The current services are:

• A “Brick” service that interfaces the Microsoft Robotics Studio (MSRS) runtime with my custom controller hardware. It communicates via RS232 to the embedded microprocessor.

• A Contact Sensor service which provides “events” to the MSRS control program when things like buttons connected to the hardware change state.

• An Analog Sensor service which notifies the system when an analog reading has arrived.

• A Digital Output service which actions digital output requests i.e. set/reset bits on the controller hardware.

I still need to write some utility type services for example setting the date/time on the hardware controller etc.
My general impression of the MSRS is that it has huge potential as a platform for standardizing the robotics and control industries.