I can reproduce the issue on the Mac, but I can also reproduce it on Windows, so I don't understand why your colleague is not having the same issue that you are. I can also reproduce the issue in Photo Mechanic 6. So this doesn't appear to be a new issue. The one thing I do not understand is how your colleague is able to get a screenshot of the Metadata Template with the code replacements un-evaluated. One difference between Mac and Windows here is that on Windows, if there is a valid code replacement in one of the fields when the Metadata Template or Info Windows are opened (or when a Snapshot is loaded), it gets evaluated immediately. If there is not a valid code in one of the fields, the code and delimiters just stay there as entered.
So for this to be working for your colleague, they would need to: type in a code (or load a snapshot with the code) that has no valid replacement in a code replacement file, and then later add the code replacement file in "Set Code Replacements", then go back and open the Metadata Template (at which point the valid code replacements would get evaluated) and then apply that to their images. On the other hand, if you were to follow these steps on Mac you'd get the results you've shown, since the code replacements don't get evaluated until they are applied.
We'll look into how to fix this, but at the moment it seems like the best workflow for you would be to create a snapshot with location information, apply that, and then another snapshot that uses the variables for the location information (like in our caption) and then apply that seperately.