I think this thread is building to be a wonderful example of how not to communicate with a community. I see that Bryce beat me to a cool down post. But I'm going to make my own attempt anyway. Here are some tips for efectively communicating with the Inkscape community.
1) Make your argument first and foremost without comparison. Really great features can stand on their own and are obviously great from the use cases users give. Most often comparisons won't strengthen your case. In fact they can often weaken your case because there is a built up resistance to this bandwagon sort of reasoning. Many people use Inkscape to excape from the software you want to compare it with. :-)
2) Don't assume that developers, users and industry professionals are mutually exclusive groups. Itch driven development means quite the opposite. Developers are users developing the software for their own uses. Some developers are industry professionals using Inkscape for their livelyhood daily. This also means that arguments that start with generalizations about user wants and expectations have to struggle against the fact that the users are developing the software the way they want it.
3) Don't assume that resistance to your idea indicates rampant disreguard for non-developer-users needs and wants. Many of the developers spend large amounts of time conversing with users in person, on IRC and on the mailing list. We know when issues are important because we can hear the consensus. As anecdotal evidence most of the features I have coded have been in direct responce to the needs and requests of users who came with polite and persistant concerns.
4) Street cred is earned, not demanded. :-) This is just a hard fact about community life. The project needs contributors to live and thrive. The more you involve yourself; the more you give of your own blood, sweat and tears, the more the community will respond to you. The great part is that simple contributions really do matter.
Aaron Spike