On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 10:10 AM, John Sampson <jrs.idx@...3210...> wrote:

I meant that I would have decided to uninstall Inkscape if I had not discovered this strange default.

I see, I misunderstood. Apologies.

I have never used the "Last used style" option nor loaded any document that would set it. There must be something else that causes it to be set that way.

As you said, the option is selected by default; but if this was the first document you had used the Rectangle tool on, this may be unintended behaviour and if it can be replicated, could be reported as a bug.
-Arlo James Barnes