Every time there's a new Xara release i get briefly very excited (because I love Xara!), but for me this has been the most disappointing feature list yet ( i pretty much use Xara only for vector illustration/design purposes) . I'm actually still running v7 (!) having seen very little of value in v8, or 9 either (the vector "painting" tools, looked *kinda* cool, but i doubt i'd ever actually use them seriously). So i guess i'll be skipping this one too. I'm not really one to abandon software just because it seems the developers have neglected it (at least in the areas i care about) - after all, it still works great for what i use it for. There are a lot of things that could be improved though, and many features lacking compared to competitors. I also can't deny that with each underwhelming update, i think more and more about giving the latest versions of Illustrator or Corel Draw another shot.

I'm always hesitant about spending money on software, but Xara is something i use *a lot*, and is one of the rare cases I'd happily throw money at updates, if only I could convince myself they were even remotely useful to me. (I'd list the 1000 minor things that would constitute "useful", but they've been covered many times by different people in the wishlist threads)