I may be one of the guy's you're referring to re tracing in inkscape

http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthread.php?t=25838

However I have a very particular and perhaps atypical requirement. I don't really do vector drawing up to now. I use xara to color, but a lot of my artwork, as cartoon remains black and white scanned in as pencil/inkwork.

vectorisation is a process for me that
a] cleans up the lines
and
b] enables me to resize the drawings without loss as I paste them up into a strip/page - which I can do in inkscape, but thats easier in xara.

thats really as far as it goes with me at present.

gnurf and David were kind enough to show that, far from being obsolete, the xara tracer is a wonderfully flexible tool for vector drawing but I dont need it at present, I dont get in the car to drive 100yards, I get on the bike, or walk.
Because it in this instance, for me, its quicker.