Just a little side note:
When you do a blend, you can select either end of the blend using the "crl" key and left mouse click, and THEN, you can adjust size, position and angle of the end you've selected. By having this ability with Xara, you can align your beginning and end lines to match exactly. (as per Eric's point about the two end lines not matching up just right.) So, from that standpoint, it really doesn't present a problem doing it Gary's way.