...my point is that if I buy a car, I would like to drive it home. Not
assembling an engine, adding steering wheel and gearbox first. Or learn a new
way of driving, like turning right to go left.

I quite agree that AI lacks features that should have been built-in for years
(even decades). But that is also true of FH. (Dimension tools, Fillet/Chamfer
individual points, more complete CAD imports,...).

> After soon a year trying to understand FHMX, it still takes me at least
twice the time to produce the same result as in FH7. Meaning my income would be
cut in half, if I couldn?t continue to work in FH7. But in reality, I can not
get any income from a program where my creativity is almost replaced by a brain
stroke...

Well, that really sounds like you just don't want to ever have to learn the
interface of a different program--or even the changes of a new version. (Your
productivity is cut *in half* if you use a version of FH more recent than 7?!)

If so, that's fine. But you are really limiting yourself with that attitude.
Have you ever tried to get your head around the drawing tools of Flash? That's
a radically different animal, too. Would you disallow yourself the whole world
of what you can accomplish with Flash just because its drawing interface is
different from FH 7's?

> I would rather retire than consider going back to Illustrator. Seriously.

Okay. Your choice. I don't think I'll ever want to retire. If there's a new
vector drawing tool worth looking at, I want to know how to use it.

> Developers seems to think that it is the applications that is doing the job
for us, but I want the freedom of deciding myself what should happen on the
screen, the very second I do something. Freehand has allowed this up to version
7 or 8, but not anymore. Illustrator never did.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you are talking about those features
which try to "think for you", like a Pen which auto-joins to unselected paths,
I agree. But being annoyed by certain behaviors in a drawing program is one
thing. Just flat out refusing to use it is another. Either way, it's your
choice.

JET