In the beginning, Illustrator was almost totally menu driven. Even the simplest things required a dialog. CorelDRAW was a little more advanced.

But near as I can tell, Xara introduced the Infobar concept that changed to offer specific options for each tool.

And Xara I believe was the first to use click and drag for interactive fills, and possibly for live effects because even an interactive fill can be modified. And the first time I saw an interactive Linear gradient transparency I was sold.

In the mid-90s Corel licensed Xara with the intention of giving Xara wider distribution. But what they did was copy some of Xara's most innovative features and then they pulled Xara from the channels. Xara was able to buy out of this disastrous contract.

Illustrator over the years has been hamstrung but their original menu driven approach but have made great strides over the years and have a very tight and evolved app.