JiHO said:
On the contrary, CAD/technical, diagramming, GIS, artistic, child modes could be very efficient in exposing only the "right" features to the user or exposing the same features differently. Indeed, depending on which kind of work you do, your _goal_ is different and the application can help you achieve it.
Well written post! I agree whole-heartedly. I am one of the users who come this application for its CAD-like abilities. While I have tried freehand drawing, I am poor at this and I know it, and consequently never look for these sorts of features.
However I also really enjoy OmniGraffle for doing UML, context diagrams, trees, etc. Having that sort of graphic-centric mode really is very conceptually different but would be great to have in Inkscape.
I can certainly believe that done correctly this is a non-trivial coding problem, but nonetheless worthwhile looking at from my perspective. And as the father of a 4 year old, a child mode would be amazing!
-Andrew