JimGoshorn

Did you try resetting the preferences by holding down the control key when you open Designer? It presents you with a dialog with preferences to reset. Wish there was a save preferences option for times like this.

It would appear that Blend Ranges in the layer options is basically equivalent to Photoshop's blend-If sliders? In Photoshop's blend-if, you can split the triangle settings so that the blends will be smoother. Since you can specify in and out percentages but there doesn't seem to be a way to finesse them, how can you finely control the transitions? 

As a new owner of Designer, I have a request for speedier workflow which could be accomplished in one of two ways.
 
In the diagram below, I wanted to build the shapes on the right hand side so I created two circles to build the shape (left shapes in diagram). In order to join them together in Designer (middle shape in the top row of diagram), I had to copy the top circle, subtract the top circle (which removes it) and then paste the circle back again. If you were to provide one of the tools requested, it would be either:
 
1) Click the shape builder tool on the segment you which to remove (middle shape in the middle row of diagram). This is like Illustrator except that you could do one thing with it that Illustrator doesn't: hold down an optional key and it would create a compound shape.
 
2) Use the delete segment tool (similar to Astute Graphics plug-in) and drag it across the segment to remove it (middle shape in the top row of diagram). A tool like this could be also used to remove overlapping segments to clean things up.
 
Either way, it's quicker than copy, subtract and paste.

Currently, gradients can run along the length of a path. Would it be possible to add the ability to have gradients run across the width of a path?

What would be really great would be if Serif and Astute Graphics could get together and come up with plug-ins for Designer.
 
I have to admit that I'm still on the fence though between Illustrator and Designer...

I agree that destructive is normally the default, so how about a checkbox in the toolbar to reverse it for those who want it to default to non-destructive?