Have a list of items which I need to group distinctly

Am using an Xpath AutoComplete ucomponents datatype.
Am running the latest stable umbraco build 4.11.3.1

My xslt goes like this:

<xsl:key name="placeKey" match="XPathAutoComplete" use="Item/@Value" />

<xsl:apply-templates select="$currentPage/Day[@isDoc]/dayPlace/XPathAutoComplete[generate-id() = generate-id(key('placeKey', Item/@Value)[1])]" />

<xsl:template match="XPathAutoComplete" >
    <li>
      <xsl:variable name="Node" select="umbraco.library:GetXmlNodeById(Item/@Value)" />
      <a href="{umbraco.library:NiceUrl(Item/@Value)}">
        <xsl:value-of select="$theActualNode/@nodeName" />
      </a>
    </li>
  </xsl:if>

</xsl:template>

The XML I'm dealing with looks like:

<dayPlace>
        <XPathAutoComplete Type="c66ba18e-eaf3-4cff-8a22-41b16d66a972">
          <Item Text="Delhi" Value="3411" />
        </XPathAutoComplete>
</dayPlace>
<dayPlace>
        <XPathAutoComplete Type="c66ba18e-eaf3-4cff-8a22-41b16d66a972">
          <Item Text="Delhi" Value="3411" />
        </XPathAutoComplete>
</dayPlace>
etc....

So it's working perfectly, but only on particular nodes/pages and I cant figure out what the patterns is.
On some pages generate-id() and my key will never match so no items get output

for example:
ID0EACQ0QF0QEAA <-- generate-id
ID0EACQ0UF0QEAA <-- key doesnt match
Delhi

ID0EACP0QF0QEAA <-- generate-id
ID0EACQ0UF0QEAA <-- key doesnt match
Delhi

Perhaps I am just not understanding how xslt keys work?

Have tried making my keys more specific, but seems to just give the same results, wondering if my XML is on drugs.

Tried to go down the Exslt.ExsltSets:distinct($nodeset) route, but no joy there either - cant even find a good example of how thats supposed to work.

I then scrapped Xslt (oh for shame) to try to acheive the same in Razor and ended up with:

@{
    
string parentCurrent = "";
<nav>
    <h3 class="visuallyhidden">List of countries in this Itinerary</h3>
    <ul class="small-links nav">
      @foreach (var day in @Model.Days.Where("Visible"))
      {
          //We use ParentCurrent to get a unique list of values.
        
          foreach (var place in @day.dayPlace)
            {
                if (parentCurrent != place.Value)
                {      
                <li><a href="@Model.NodeById(place.Value).Url">@place.Text</a></li>
                }
                parentCurrent = place.Value;
                
            }
            
      }
    </ul>

  </nav>
}

Which works fine and dandy, except after some testing I found that If someone uses the AutoComplete field, saves it and then takes out the original value and saves it blank my xml becomes:

<dayPlace>
 <XPathAutoComplete Type="c66ba18e-eaf3-4cff-8a22-41b16d66a972" />
</dayPlace>

which causes the above razor to freak its shit:

'char' does not contain a definition for 'Value'

because these items usually (if populated) get picked up as:

uComponents.DataTypes.Shared.Models.AutoCompleteItem

And I dont know in this context how to check the type, or check for an empty value since razor is a bit like voodoo magic for me.

Appreciate any wise words or slaps to say I'm just doing it wrong.... pretty bummed out that this turned out to be so difficult.

- Tim