Inkscape does vector gradients but they are very limited,
Limited how? The gradient tool in Inkscape is quite detailed. You’ll have to rasterize it once it’s set but you can exert a great deal of control over the gradient before you do.
By contrast you take something like gimp… I think the only feature that it has that Inkscape doesn’t is the one we don’t want in this case: nonlinear gradients. Even then, you can simulate that using multiple stops in your gradient in inkscape.
I’d be curious to know what you think makes Inkscape “very limited”, maybe I just don’t know enough about gradients.
They work fine for my purposes, except instead of a gradient (where the actual % is not known precisely), I just switched it to a number of filled boxes and playing around with vector fill settings vs. bitmaps.
It’s not much of a priority for me at the moment.
Or about Gimp (or I do not know Inkscape enough) In Gimp a vector is far more than a line or a border but a structure you can operate many concepts along. The gradient is one I use most to follow the line and thus round the corner that follows the shape, and I dont know how to do that in Inkscape. There are a bunch of other commands that you can shape with a path as well.
Inkscape can arrange copies along a line (and Gimp doesn’t) but that is why I use both.