Thank you both for the really helpful responses.
It is hard for me to provide examples of what I mean , as I have effectively "designed out" this from my work. I think the outline approach might work in some applications.
I guess most of it comes down to patience and ensuring everything looks uniform. At the moment there is not much that can be done to ensure there is an equal distance between paths (particularly where you are dealing with multiple overlaying shapes)
The attached file , is very very quickly pulled together to try and help show what i mean. Working outside to inside , there is not very much I can do to ensure either , the angle of curvature is the equal or the spacing between the paths is equal and I think this makes it look really amateur. If I was able to offset the path , I would know that it was by a certain unit of measurement.
It's almost something that I am thinking about getting illustrator for. I say that very reluctantly as I love AD.