While creating a shape, it is possible to freely change its proportions (ie, a square into a rectangle, or a circle into an ellipse). Afterwards, however, these proportions become locked: the 'resize' function works in effect as 'rescale'. I often find, however, that I need to change them, f. example if I am using the shape to outline some handwritten text, and I add to that text. I often end up having to redraw the entire shape.

All you would need to do is to let the 'resize' option work for shapes in the same way as it already does for pasted figures, where it always allows changes of proportion as well as just rescaling.