It's correct behaviour for <![CDATA[ ... ]]> in the XML editor to change to <![CDATA[ ... ]]> in the file - the XML editor shows plain text, not escaped text, and text that you type into it will be interpreted as plain text, not as escaped text.
Likewise, " changing to " is OK (though unnecessary for element content, as opposed to attribute values).
Presumably, your objection to " is that it makes the script less readable. So I'm marking this bug as a duplicate of bug 199656.
I can't reproduce the problem of Inkscape "eating" the xlink: of an xlink:href. Please file a separate bug report for that, and attach a file for which the problem happens.
It's correct behaviour for <![CDATA[ ... ]]> in the XML editor to change to <![CDATA[ ... ]]> in the file - the XML editor shows plain text, not escaped text, and text that you type into it will be interpreted as plain text, not as escaped text.
Likewise, " changing to " is OK (though unnecessary for element content, as opposed to attribute values).
Presumably, your objection to " is that it makes the script less readable. So I'm marking this bug as a duplicate of bug 199656.
I can't reproduce the problem of Inkscape "eating" the xlink: of an xlink:href. Please file a separate bug report for that, and attach a file for which the problem happens.