I was a long time Illustrator user. I think before the subscription model, say around CS3, Illustrator was fantastic. Then they started changing things in the UI that didn't need to be changed. I'm not against adding features but unnecessary changes really annoy me. I've been using Affinity Designer for the last year and I think it's great. It doesn't have all of the features Illustrator has but you can do real, professional work with it. Inkscape doesn't even come close.