ok so having grown up in 'the old days' of multimedia (yes even before 'new media' and before it would have been translated as 'teh old dayz' lol) I was taught to draw in vectors. Yes, I learned on Illustrator 4 and then picked up a little software package called Aldus FreeHand (later Macromedia FreeHand). But honestly the software doesn't matter.
Why are people drawing 'vectors' in Illustrator that are only Illustrator vectors?!! ARGH!
What I mean is I'm exploring open source license icons for some quick and dirties and every icon package has a drop shadow here or a transparency there in Illustrator. Drop shadows in Illustrator? NOT REALLY VECTOR DROP SHADOWS....they get rasterized. Transparency? Well, there is no EPS format transparency so Illustrator makes clip paths to mask it to LOOK AS SUCH. But it isn't.
I figured Adobe had this figured out on the Illustrator to Flash conversion. Nope. 1800 MCs later one simple icon from Illustrator comes into Flash on a simple copy and paste...one vector app to another. Export an SWF from Illustrator 11? Sure.....nope you get the red masks as objects visible.
So, is our problem that Illustrator can't covert it's vectors down to real vectors (such as Flatten in Flash works...kind of) or are we not teaching our graphic artists how to draw in real vectors for print and various web applications?
Man, Adobe need to get you on their payroll just to shut you up 
Seriously, I feel your pain. just went through an exercise of converting Illustrator graphics down to a usable format for Flash where vector preservation was a requirement. What should have taken less than an hour took me over a day as I had to treat every object (hundreds of them) by hand.
The problem is the former of the mentioned. Illustrator has no real way of flattening layers and nested clips into a practical web format. I tried converting to pdf, svg, copy past, export as swf etc and none of it worked. IMO it is Adobe that need to improve compatibility not the designs that need to accommodate application flaws. Though, in the real world, designers need to be designing with final requirements in mind so that us devs don't have to grunt our way through a pile of design assets. Fuck you little red squares.
LATE TO THE PARTY
well, that's what happens when you apply raster effects to vector art.
converting masked stuff to usable swfs is a real bitch though, no question. Even for garment printing it's useless. you actually have to release the mask, draw a larger square around it, run pathfinder> divide, ungroup, delete the center shape so now you have a frame blocking out the parts you don't want, expand the original artwork (maybe expand appearance and tehn expand depending on content) then run pathfinder again with the frame selected as well, ungroup, use the magic wand to select the frame colour, delete it, then use pathfinder>unite to get all of the individual colours grouped together in a usable form.
Of course if there's raster effects on any of that you'll have to recreate them using gradients which is never the easiest thing to do, certainly not as automatic as it seems like it should be.
if it makes you feel any better it was way harder before the CS series.
... elaborate workarounds are only the tip of the bad usability iceberg - there are so many UI fuckups in Adobe products ...my personal favourite Flash UI screwup is that you don't see shortcuts in the menu hover, you actually have to go to edit>keyboard shortcuts. nice.
On a related note, you guys may get a chuckle out of this:http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/
How about the fact that you can't place the newest version of Flash video (F4V) from the newest version of Flash (CS4) into the newest version of Dreamweaver (CS4)?
Seriously, WTF?
good topic for a rant 
I've certainly spent my share of time recreating and/or working with other folk's Illustrator files to see more problems than I could have imagined...
however, I've long ago come to accept that when working in Illustrator, I have stepped into the realm of "others"—these people just think very differently from how I was taught
on the otherhand, I believe Adobe has contributed in large part to the further confusion of folks who truly believe that [pure] Vectors are better for many situations...
get me started... here's an example of my own Vector Rant topic
okay, so Photoshop's being able to process and work with Vector information is perhaps very much akin to Illustrator having raster effects like drop shadows
nevertheless, if you use Photoshop's Vector tools, whether it is Typeography or Shapes and Paths... you can take your 'layered' Photoshop document and save a PDF [uncheck layers in the save dialog] and have all your Vector information preserved or protected through output for print... amazing stuff really, and I have some very amazing export settings that have been pretty much bullet-proof over the last few years
in any event, along comes Adobe and introduces Vector Smart Objects just being Vector, and being labled as 'smart', surely had folks who understood Photoshop's vector-handling capabilities excited
however, on output, Photoshop does not 'read' the vector information in Vector Smart Objects to process it for output as Vectors [like it does Type or Shapes]... one would think that Illustrator files placed into Photoshop would work like linked files and read the Vector information through the Smart Object... but noooo. they are rasterized at document resolution—and are only "vector" and "smart" because they are editable in Illustrator.
what gets me most is that the attitudes reflected in the comments of some of the best-informed folks try and make it seem like "what were you thinking?"... when, for those of us working in print, preserving Vectors seems like the most-logical, most-important aspect for even considering calling something a Vector Smart Object
True, true. I have the same complaint about drawing shapes - it's great workflow for a designer to keep non-destructive forms & everything, but it's a total pain in the ass for print. I think we can safely assume that doing vector work in p'shop besides paths is total ass... and don't even get me started on the hassle of importing eps files from photoshop into a print layout app!
Originally posted by: arigato ...and don't even get me started on the hassle of importing eps files from photoshop into a print layout app!
:mad: