Hi @dolson_farmington ,
This isn't something that can currently be changed within the Map Tour. This has been requested in the past and is on our radar as a potential enhancement down the line.
We can see the reasoning for wanting to have the locations top aligned in some scenarios, though the reasoning for centering the locations on the narrative panel is to allow the locations to be scrolled through and keep the map static. Without the spacing at the top, the scrolling would be less dynamic and that map tour would be set in place within the story.
Thank you for bringing this behavior up! You could potentially embed another ArcGIS app like you mentioned, but I'm not sure which could give this alignment you're looking for. I'll let you know if I see any that could give a similar layout.
--Abby