I think all you say is correct, but the default is not the option which produces the smallest code; the default is simply the option which is expected and liked by the majority. Moreover, when you count that majority, novices and casual users have a larger weight because this is who will mostly use the defaults. This is why I asked about the option here in the list. Your desire to get clean SVG is understandable (even though I don't think a pattern fill is in any way "unclean"), but I have a suspicion that the ability to reshape a bitmap will be welcomed by more people (and the list response so far confirms this). Anyway, remember that you (and anyone else who wants to get <image>) will be able to set the corresponding option once and forget about the issue.
That isn't to say that the new functionality isn't good - implementing any new svg feature is a good thing. Just that doing simple things should produce clean and simple SVG.
I disagree. Doing clean and simple things must produce clean, simple, and predictable _behavior_. A rect is a much more familiar, clean, and simple thing to a user than an <image> which is frighteningly inflexible.
[0] As an aside: has any thought been given to supporting JNG? It is a variant of PNG supporting jpeg compressed image data with a PNG alpha channel, and is specified as part of MNG: http://www.libmng.com/pub/mng/
We now use gdkpixbuf for bitmap import, so if it supports it, we do too.
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