I've been a long time CorelDraw user for artsy designs for CNC cutting (TurboCad for exacting stuff). I've used Corel Photo-Paint some for resizing photos and some touch up, but I'd never try to tackle something like this with them. I looked at Illustrator and PhotoShop, but just never really got into them (something about their interface). RealDraw was just plain easy and fun, not work.
CorelDraw has about the best set of alignment tools that I've used and RD would really benefit from the same. RD's align top, bottom, left , and right are more of a align center vertically and horizontally instead of aligning to the edge of the last selected object. A spread align would be handy also.
When locking down the background, you should be able to box select on top of it and also not be able to move it with the arrow keys.
I've got a few other nits to pick, but that doesn't belong here. I should look to see if there's a place for comments/suggestions on their site.
All in all, Ive enjoyed making this screen. I just need some more time now to finish it, but I need to make a living too.