I realise Inkscape inherited a lot of code from Sodipodi and Sodipodi was using SVG as a means to an end rather than trying to produce clean markup that could be easily edited manually but what I would like to know is if there are any plans or exisiting request for Inkscape to use the standard ellipse rect and polygon tags? (If I could think of something to search for I might stand I better chance of finding an existing RFE but a quick skim of the first few pages didn't turn up much).
I grabbed a nightly build and produce a simple file with a Rectangle, an Ellipse and a Star but when I inspected the markup all were represented in the file using Paths. (From a techincal point of View it is interesting that Convert Object to Path doesn't actually convert anything.) I realise the Inkscape ellipse supports more functionality than can be represented by an ellipse but I think using the tags where possible would produce much cleaner markup which is very useful to people like me who like to obsessively tweak their images and carefully hand edit the markup.
Sincerely
Alan Horkan http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/