My plotrec functionality is rather limited in that it only plots one symbol (default is the red star), rather than the annotation label symbols. There is nothing being done incorrectly.

I will add the symbol plotting functionality at some point in the future (unless someone else does it first).

Is the meaning of the star the same as in PhysioBank's annotations? (i.e. * = systole). How do would I go about choosing and plotting the "V" symbol then?

No, it's just the default symbol for the plotrec function. You can read the doc and input any other style/symbol to plot. The symbols are stored in the Annotation object's symbol attribute, and the locations are stored in the object's sample attribute.

I added the plotannsym argument in plotrec.