Xfig has got one possibility to set a special flag on text which means that this text doesn't get exported on combined LaTeX ps but is written to the LaTeX file which means that you're able to also use LaTeX possibilies of typsetting mathematics and so on.
Do you think it would be much effort to add this to inkscape, too? Because I *really* prefer inkscape over xfig :) inkscape could became the tool of choice making figures for LaTeX.. xfig is nice but lacks some functionality.
The other thing is when exporting to ps inkscape currently just ignores transparency.. All you would have to do having two rectangles
------ -- : rect1 without ++ ---+++||| ++ : overlapping area ---+++||| || : rect2 without ++ |||||| rect2 is above rect1
would be splitting this rectangles into 3 and calculate the color of the + rectangle depending on the transparency of rect2 and color of rect1.. Then all 3 reactangles can be exported as it's done right now. And because the function Stroke to path is already provided (although I'm not sure how well it works using some advanced stroke style) it shouldn't be that hard to implement. What do you think?
Marc