Thanks for resolving that particular cognitive dissonance; I tried Blender once, then gave up in bewilderment after a few hours. I may have to give it another shot.
Sorry for not being clear. Blender is by no means an example of a superb UI. The learning curve is exceedingly high and even after hundreds of hours behind the controls there are many things I do not understand. Much of this is because the UI controls do not make sense. Of course, with the release of 2.5 there were some improvements, but it is still not that great.
That being said, one thing they did EXTREMELY well was put shortcut keys on all of the things that you do frequently. After doing Inkscape for a while I get really frustrated by the lack of easy navigation.
Granted it's fantastic once you know how to use it, but good luck with that.