How to publish MAUI app? (Visual Studio ignores publish profiles.)

Question

I have an issue with publishing MAUI apps, i.e. creating AppX packages (I assume they are called).

When I create a new MAUI project (MauiApp1) I first disable Android (no Android SDK installed) and iOS targets. (For some reason the Maccatalyst target remains active, but I think this has no relevance.)

Then when I try to Build -> Publish Selection I get to the "Create App Packages" wizard. I select Sideloading, a self-created certificate, and ultimately arrive at a "Select and configure packages" screen, as opposed to the screen where I can select or create a publish profile. This appears to be a function of time: a new Maui project lets me create or choose a publish profile for a while, but if the project has been sitting a few minutes, this does not happen any more. When I click "Create" in that window, it builds and claims that a package has been created built, but the Output location is empty. (What the output location is does not affect this, and yes it exists.)

This is the "Select and confifugre packages" screen:

But if I create a new Maui project, the screen does appear:

This has happened to me now with about 4 or 5 newly created Maui projects, and I cannot find (with devenv/diff) any differences in the project or publish profile files (except project name, build target etc.). Neither can I see any changes at all.

Problem is, my two books on Maui do not explain this wizard (they simply say you have to put Windows into developer mode, which I have done long ago) and I found some Youtube videos that claim to explain Maui publishing but they just explain (and explain and explain) how to create a certificate and then simply stop before I could see the relevant step in the wizard.

So what the heck? Any ideas?