so all I can provide are my own observations (no, I did not re-read the archived threads on inkscape-devel about introducing on-canvas editing for gradients, later gradual enhancements for that feature, and future plans of bulia byak for gradient editing):ġ) A possible reason not to add further specific gradient editing features in the node tool: already existing conflicts - gradient stops interfering with (and obstructing) the actual task of the dedicated tool (path nodes get inaccessible when overlapped with gradient stops) - would get even worse. The feature to enable gradient editing with other tools (apart from the one dedicated to editing gradients on-canvas) was added before I even knew about Inkscape. > Or do you recall any hard reason why adding stops with the option What did work in old versions and still does work in Inkscape >= 0.91 with any tool which enables gradient editing: drag&dropping a color from the palette onto the gradient line to create a new stop with this color, and dropping a color on an existing stop to change the color of that stop. What does work in the older versions is double-clicking an existing gradient stop (with any tool) which opens the deprecated gradient editor dialog which itself allows to insert new gradient stops (but not interactively on-canvas). I just tested with Inkscape 0.47 (official package) and 0.48.5 (local build) on OS X 10.7.5 - it is not possible to add (insert) gradient stops on-canvas by double-clicking (or Ctrl+Alt-clicking) a gradient line with any of the tools which support the 'Enable gradient editing' feature, except for the gradient tool itself.

Could you please share the magic how you added new gradient stops _on-canvas_ (double-click or Ctrl+Alt+click) with tools other than the gradient tool itself in Inkscape 0.48 or earlier releases?

Install inkscape gradient