My own experience: I teach someone to make (very simple) drawings and import images in Inscape, instead of using paint, word, or photoshop.He says "Wow, seems easy".
<Two weeks later> I found the person using paint, word or photoshop.¿Did you left Inkscape?-I ask -I don't like this program, is broken, he says. I see the files he had made: All with a big cross saying "Broken Image", he moved the files, but not the pictures, and expected the program to be "file system location independent" as paint, word or photoshop. Another user lost.
This story nicely illustrates the problem. Home users expect their images to be embedded, professional users expect their images to be linked. Nobody would ever stumble across InDesign linking images, because non-professionals don't use it. Everybody expect Word to embed images -- and the pros curse it. I don't agree with who ever said, we should change import to place in the menu. Actually I think we should have import be the default and it should embed images. A setting should change this to place and then you link images. In both dialogues there should be a check button to do the opposite of the default action. I believe that is the only way, non-professionals and professionals can get along with the same tool.
No playing around with size. Drag and Drop just uses the set option. Plain and simple and no extra menu entry that will only confuse the home users.
David