Hi bard, I don't know what you have against Xara's "policy", I find them most non-agressive, (you should see serif!).

Over time I found Xara to be the fastest and most robust vector interface.
The learning curve is very fast and it have a lot of subtle productive details.

I also like the effort they invested in consistency across functions.

Illustrator does have a lot of very cool functions though, but some important core mechanic aspects are not so great.

Most irritating examples for me are:

-Zooming in a complex drawing is quite slow.
-No enclosing fence selection method.
-No direct line/fill method (you have you select before you hit a swatch).
-No direct radial/linear transparency tool.
-Involuntary selection of non-selected object's nodes while fencing.
-Raster objects handles differently than paths.
-Crippling shortcut key system

There is also a lot of redundant tools and panels, crucial features are often buried in menus.

I imagine it depends on the type of work you do, if you mostly do simple objects like corporate logos with lots of white Illustrator can be quite cool.
I mostly do illustration with Xara, and I often use hundreds of vector and raster objects to build them, little details like forcing fence selection over objects is quite appreciated.

Xara sure has weak spots and they do not have an army of developers, but all in all I do prefer their shortcoming over other vector program I've tried.

Marc