Well, based on the responses thus far, it looks like I am far from alone.

And here we are several days later and no response from Xara and not from the new ceo specifically.

I am looking at Affinity like many here, but honestly, the learning curve is there to deal with and it would have to knock it completely out to get my money.

We don't really use a lot of web features in Xara except for two things... 1 design mockups with some live parts that are just better than a flat jpg and 2. Splash pages, which are really easy and fast. It may stay around for the second option, but I really don't want to support Xara with things going SO far away from the desktop, even when the core of that part of the program has been begging for years for new and improved drawing tools and what we get is more and more dumbed down, cloud based, least common denominator desktop software... With no new drawing tools and a complete lack of respect for the very users who made Xara even possible to look at professionally. But they seem to want to give that all away for the entry level masses, even at the pro versions... Provided you can find them. SMH.