Inkscape

Most of the old methods require 1 step less, if you use duplicate and 'select under' instead of 'Copy'/'Paste in Place'/'Lower'.

What does the new method do when the fill is fully transparent? Will it create an unselectable object?

Why does Case 2, new method create a fill at all? I would not expect that to happen. Couldn't that be changed? (or is this true at all? This would create a fill out of nothing - what color would the non-existant fill get, btw.?) This case often occurs for people who do plotting and cutting, and (to my experience) they don't want to deal with too much complexity on the Inkscape side of things, as the plotting and cutting part is already complex enough.

About the note for case 5: There are faster ways than repeating this for each object. Removing the stroke for example can be done for multiple objects at once, just like lowering a whole group of objects. If I counted correctly, I get 10 steps a single time, regardless of the number of objects, whithout the N, using grouping. This does not include re-stacking if the objects originally overlapped, though.

This will result in the total numbers being a bit different than your calculations, CR (I get a ratio of 2.55 in the end), but still a lot better than previously.

I agree the feature is a great addition to Inkscape :) (if it doesn't create fills out of nothing)

Hi Maren, thanks for your notes!

Answering your questions:
In Case 2: No new object is created if there is no fill, since the entire point of creating a new object fo the fill is to preserve the fill. I will add that note to Case 2. We had discussed this a bit when coming up with these plans, and everyone in the IRC channel agreed that if we could keep the old behaviour by X-ing out the fill before Stroke to Path, that would solve the issue for most users who prefer the old behaviour.

You're probably right about Case 5, though the case does specify that the stacking and layer order must be preserved. As you say though, it doesn't matter that much really. You'll have to show me the trick for duplicate and select under. That still seems like two actions to me... :) At any rate, I'm glad you are on board with the changes regardless of my somewhat questionable figures. :D

Oh, Case 2 does already say "Single, unfilled object". That's supposed to indicate there is no fill object in the result, just the outline converted to filled object. I'll add the note anyway though.

Thank you, Chris, for the explanation :) I somehow misread the case 2 description, don't know how that happened :/

For the numbers, I had sent you an email.
(Duplicate and select under are 2 actions - which is less than 'Copy'/'Paste in Place'/'Lower'.)