Quoth Bryce Harrington on or about 2004-06-22:
I would probably say for 'plain old diagramming' purposes, the next key feature we need would probably either be symbol libraries or wrapped-text-in-a-box. We need text-in-box capability for a lot of other stuff too. Line autorouting and line breaks (for where two lines overlap) will also be needed. I think if we had those four features, then Inkscape would probably have the edge over dia for most diagramming needs.
I would define the two key elements as:
* anchoring text element to an object (polygons & paths) -- what you called `text-in-a-box'.
* anchoring path head & tail to object edges.
so that when you move them around, the anchored vertices move too.
I'm imagining rather than dia's arbitrary-point attachment model, you could anchor it N units along the path, then move the anchor the way you round rectangles now.
But don't look at me to code it anytime soon :-)
As for symbol libraries, they'll accumulate as users need them -- all it needs (to begin with) is a corner of the wiki.
-trent