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The professional world needs an affordable alternative to Adobe Illustrator. And several offerings are clamoring for that space. The problem is Adobe was a monolith for many years, they were a monopoly, and their teams were amazing. But they have all disbanded. In the latest release, Photoshop's Export As feature was reduced from a percentage down to options like "Very good." Illustrator had updates that completely broke the performance and simplify tools, and they've been scrambling to get it all back in order. All the new additions I've seen in these programs over the years have clearly been done by a younger, inexperienced team of developers, not necessarily designers for the intention of catering to professionals, and the overall decision has been to only make updates that users hate so they waste time having to revert it and give people a reason to continue paying. So even without the stupid subscription, the Adobe house is falling. I considered what it would take for my workplace to stop providing me an Adobe subscription, and honestly there's not too much that I really need.
The problem is Affinity Designer, if it ever wishes to be more than just a side drawing program for fun, needs more attention to the workflows and necessities of professionals so they can do everything they need to do in one program. This is not fun stuff, it's stuff like vectorizing raster images, fixing lines by drawing near them, and maybe not having totally random glitches when sending to print. The big updates have stopped, now it's just small tweaks and refinements.
There is a much bigger market for this program than what Affinity set out to make. It was marketed to professionals, we were promised a program that can do it all. We're willing to spend a lot more than $25 for that program, but we're not given the option.

Just in case someone else is looking for a solution to this still. There is still no equivalent to illustrators simplify path but there is one alternative that I have been using lately that works fairly well. You'll have to try it out to see what works for you.
1. Select object with the node tool and make sure all nodes are selected
2. in the action tool bar, select "convert -> smooth" or "convert -> smart" to convert all the selected nodes. (in my experience convert->smooth has the biggest impact)
3. Now press the "action -> smooth curve"
If done in this way it actually removes quite a few unneeded nodes. The only way to customize the outcome is by manually selecting/deselecting nodes and choosing smooth or smart in the convert section.. You can do like MEB mentioned earlier and just use the action -> smooth curve but in my experience it never really changes much unless combined with "convert".
I truly hope a better option comes soon, so *bump* to the devs, simply path is a super useful tool.

It certainly shouldn't be a democracy, but there are quite a few UI failings based on objective parameters.  If you are providing functionality in software you have to decide how to expose that functionality to the user. You have to know how they employ functionality and provide access to meet their needs. In the case of the preferences window it seems inarguable that going back and forth between screens is less efficient than other methods, such as a tabbed interface or a dual-pane approach (with a list of categories to flip through on the left, the parameters on the right). Another consideration is whether some of these preferences might be things users would change frequently, in which case they should be part of the main interface instead of a "preference".  The developers may not always have the experience in production to know what users are doing with the software, so the feedback is necessary. I recall the early days of graphic software where setting the measurement units might be a "preference", until developers realised that people were changing units constantly from job-to-job or whilst working on a single job; thus interfaces were added to allow quick switching of measurements, mixed-measurement systems and field-based entry of values in any desired unit. Not only that, but we've now had many decades of UI design history, and there are examples of efficient solutions readily available - and if the developers aren't aware of those then the users may well be. If you make a tool you'll never know exactly how it might be used. When you get feedback you can improve that tool to better serve those purposes not envisaged. You get happier customers, you get more customers. As far as functionality goes, I'm very happy with what Affinity provides as it stands - I'd rather see development work on making the UI more consistent and efficient than adding fancy tricks.  

Version 1.10 still no signs of improvement in Preferences window.
Coming from the software development industry I presume this is a low priority feature to Serif not because it is not important, but because it is not a "shop window" feature, it does not sell units, it just bugs us suckers that already payed for the thing.
For me personally, because I switch many different apps during one day (or what hurts even more, one month, when you use some apps every xouple o days or weeks), preferences is one of the most important features, that makes strong first impressions. Not being able to quickly tweak the tool to my liking and preference, means huge frustration as I stated in the title. It means that switching to Affinity app in the time of need will hurt my brain trying to adapt to shortcuts that I did not have time or energy changing to my preference because of the useless UI design of shortcuts tab in app preferences. I do not need Affinity apps every day but I do need them, and they are important to me.
I already switched some of my other bread and butter apps with newer ones that had these basic UI paradigms sorted out. We live in a world that is being filled with more and more options, and features and things. Software developers that make their features and tool more easily available and usable are gonna get more buyers because most users, and most tasks only call for the minority of basic features, and to me being able to make these basic features even more easily available by setting my own shortcuts is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT. Serif treating this as low priority is making a mistake I think. Ask Blender devs what a rethink of UI can do for the user acquisition.
Better general UX and UI is exactly why I switched from Adobe to Affinty apps in the first place too.. not the number of features.

Many times I'm working on variations of a design, then decide to pare down to a few favs. I then change doc size to remove dead space and constantly find myself wishing I could see changes to the drawing board as I type in the new dimensions. Is this already a thing and I missed it?

Although affinity is a very good software, the lack of mesh warp, warp brush or puppet warp prevents me from using it as a production tool.
Exporting from one software to another to do specific common actions is a pain.
It's surprising that this tool isn't implemented with all the traction affinity has.
 

Coming from Illustrator, something I used somewhat infrequently but often enough was the Variable Stroke Width tool. This tool allowed you to change the width of the stroke along a curve (we have this) with adjustable Anchors along the curve (we don’t have this). Very useful if you wanted to precisely align a specific stroke width to a specific area of the shape like a pre-measured curve anchor. 
This video shows what I’m talking about:
 

Thanks @dominik, but I don't need to "see" the combs, I just want to be able to have "rounder"/smoother curves like the above diagram shows.

Should be the default in my opinion, but Affinity really needs to add this functionality into the rounded rectangle tool and any other rounding algorithms.
 
Short answer: "Squircles" are what make Apple products have "more than rounded" corners.
 
Great article here:
https://hackernoon.com/apples-icons-have-that-shape-for-a-very-good-reason-720d4e7c8a14

Coming from Illustrator, something I used somewhat infrequently but often enough was the Variable Stroke Width tool. This tool allowed you to change the width of the stroke along a curve (we have this) with adjustable Anchors along the curve (we don’t have this). Very useful if you wanted to precisely align a specific stroke width to a specific area of the shape like a pre-measured curve anchor. 
This video shows what I’m talking about:
 

Pattern fill is painfully missing. It should be a feature added before 2.0. It is crucial for web design mock-ups. I have done the Symbol+power duplicate for making a theme/UI elements that are static size and it works OK but unnecessarily time consuming for higher res images. It is not at all practical for images/UI elements that need constant resizing during experimentation. I use the bitmap when I can, but haven't found a way to get it to set at 1x1 fill (original size)... Instead I have to manually scale to what feels right and that's not showing the "real world" usage of that image. It's useful in other aspects, but not this particular use case.

We'd really like to abandon AI but it's 100% not happening cause the vast majority of our work consists in making patterns. Although we consider Affinity Deisnger a better software we can't make the switch cause it'll slow us down a huge amount without a solid pattern fill tool : \ 
Just leaving the feedback cause we hope it gets introduced soon, we'll definitely foresee  a party when it happens!

There is a (very) rough workaround by using creating clipping-masked squares/rectangles/tileable shapes and converting them to symbols, then tiling them over and over again. That’s pretty much what at pattern fill is, but AI streamlines the workflow and manual adjustments over so you can work faster. I don’t know when we’ll see such a feature implemented in Affinity apps as it’s been years since this feature was first requested. 

Yes,please!
That would be very helpful since people have been asking for this feature since 2018. Every good design software has it (Photoshop, Procreate,...)

Is there any available update on this? I know y’all will release it when it is ready, just really looking forward to it/already have some things I anticipate pulling together on the software when it is available!

I don't really get the point to switch the app to 1.10 as there are not so much big changes and new functions as previous update from 1.8 to 1.9. 🤔
It looks like a fix update, not a milestone.
Why the version number suddenly changed from 1.9.3 to 1.10?

Honestly, I do think the whole 'lock' function needs to just be brought in line with most common art apps. That would help both in this case, and countless others.

+1 I was also surprised by this quirk. 
I did not expect Select Same to select invisible objects, and I also did not expect Select Same to select locked objects. Without some way or option to limit the scope to only visible/unlocked objects, this feature is really hamstrung for my uses.
When the Select Same feature selects locked objects, you can easily end up in a situation that feels like a bug: Given I have 10 green circles that are visible, and 5 other green circles that are invisible and locked. Goal, to move the 10 green circles to a different part of the canvas. When I click one green circle, and Select Same, the 10 visibles + 5 invisible and locked circles are selected. And when I try to move my selection to the different part of the canvas, by dragging with the mouse or arrow keys, I cannot move them, because the locked ones are locked. Personally I would have expected only the visible ones to be selected, and then I could have moved them where I wanted.

I appreciate the reply fde101. I am aware that the lock function only prevents selection and transformation. My apologies if I was unclear on my point.
The point I was attempting to make is that I am surprised that the lock function allows anything at all to happen to the locked objects/layers. It could just be my memory playing trick on me, but I am accustomed to the lock function in other programs (Illustrator, CorelDraw, Inkscape, etc.) excluding locked items from any action whatsoever. I'm hopeful that Affinity Draw will incorporate something like this in the future so that the newly implement (and much appreciated) Select All function can be used a little more conveniently and efficiently.

I agree I was really surprised to find that locking a given object didn't prevent it from being accessed by the Select Same function. It would seem a really simple fix to exclude locked items from the selection.

No need to get snarky when it's a real and reproducible issue, as confirmed by staff. Thank you.
You mean as in, you know, "You're holding it wrong!" …?
So, were you using open paths to divide?
And they didn't autoclose, creating unwanted sub-objects?

Currently in all Affinity products when creating a dashed line there is no simple way to create even endpoints or corners. Yes, there is the option to change the "phase" but it very rarely gives the result you want and yes you can spend a LOT of time adjusting the dash size and spacing until you get something perfect... but none of these things are a good workflow... if I then need to adjust the shape the dash alignment goes off again and back to square one.
I hate saying this but....
In Illustrator there is a very simple button to toggle between retaining the exact dash length and therefore corners or endpoints are not the same and stretching the dash between corners/endpoints therefore making them all the same (see image below).
We need this in Affinity!
It's a big time saver, improves workflow and offers the best of both worlds depending on the desired outcome.  

Sorry - I know about and have tried this workaround.  But with hundreds of figures to do (not counting rework from Customer feedback) - this is downright impractical. 
Odd that this basic feature has been requested for years and although Affinity Photo has such a feature, it remains unsolved for Designer.  So, I will be using Serif Draw until I find a different product that fulfills my Production needs.

It blows my mind that Photo has this feature and not Designer... pattern use and creation is much more of a vector use tool I would have thought (generalization) If anything why not bring it to both platforms? Why just photo? Grrrrrr

Alt-clicking an object/layer is not useful at all, as far as I can tell. Unless I did something wrong. It seems to be for viewing only. As soon as you click anywhere, everything is shown again. So it is not possible to isolate a group and edit it without showing/interference of other objects. Wouldn't it be useful to isolate objects like Alt-click does now, but staying in this mode unless you press ESC or something similar.
Right now editing groups is cumbersame. As soon as you deselect an object you are out of the group, and have to double-click to select an object within the group again. Having multiple nested groups is quickly becoming annoying. With such an isolation mode I would always stay within the group and could directly select the objects by just clicking them. That would be some relief....!