I think it would be invaluable for 0.42 that this whole approach should be rethought and reimplemented in a clearer way.
Not just invaluable but mandatory, IMO. It's been a usability disaster.
Well, the question is, is there any possible way to have inkscape autodetect on startup to see if the appropriate dependencies are installed, and only give options to use them if they are available? It's a tease to see the .ps or .ai file formats listed if you cannot really use them right away (out of the box, so to speak). Another possibility is to have it give a specific warning when you try to use a specific feature. And my last potential solution is that we need to package the necessary files to give inkscape this functionality natively. The first or last suggestions would be optimal in my opinion because you get the option to use formats on Windows, where the programs we depend on aren't available for it and they would both resolve that.
Just my .02 (which is probably worth -.02) -Josh