Comment 4 for bug 311828

> if I have the option "Visual bounding box", selected, I think the Property Bar for Rectangle Tool should display the same size as the Property Bar for Selector Tool

no (caveat: I'm not a developer): see the tool tips for the height and width fields: the select tool controls bar width&height fields respect the bbox setting (they show the width for the selection) whereas the rectangle tool controls bar shows the length of the path segments (and therefor independent of the bbox setting).

to demonstrate:
1) draw rectangle 100x100
2) switch to the select tool, rotate the rectangle, watch the select tool controls bar width&height fields change
3) switch back to the rectangle tool: width&height are still (unchanged) 100x100