Transperancy and Shadows to become more dynamic

I use a lot of transperancy options when designing and would love for the transperancy options to be more dynamic and include the ability to fade out a box not just a circle or elipse. Fading photos from the centre to the 4 edges would be very useful. Also shadow options are fairly weak. Making a shadow inside an outline box which does not blead out past the box line would also be amazing. Very useful for creating cut out effects. I've used Corel Draw for nearly 25 years and this has always been something I've had issues with.