Turns out that although Xara X is the professional vector graphics package for the artist on a budget, thus qualifying as the plucky underdog of the graphics industry, Inkscape (free, open source) is actually a lot better at some things. Take the image below - using Xara's bitmap tracer of my original hand drawn picture, the result was quite poor. Inkscape, however, handled it with ease.

For those wondering, this is yet another drawing I've done that will end up as website eye candy. In fact it already is, but the current version is due to be replaced at some point.