Multiple Object Fill?

[Guest]

there again a really good illustration has more than one shape for a fill area - some have dozens in order to get the effect realistic....

I think it depends on what one wants to do. I for instance would never use Xara (or any other Vector Editor) to replicate a Bitmap with Vectors.
Instead I'd maybe like to create an Illustration from a CAD-Drawing which comes in with lots of closed regions but not quite the way Xara accepts as joined/closed.

The classic way would always be there for those who need it.
A partly automated version which detects regions and allowed for manual disambiguation would greatly speed up the work for those who don't typically deal with extremely delicate fill scenarios.

[handrawn]

I don't disagree

you could always try inkscape