Stick with Corel and use Inkscape as a complimentary piece of software. Corel is basically the industry standard. If you read an engraving magazine or look up an article on laser engraving, most of the time they will be doing it with Corel draw. Your learning curve will be a lot less steep if you have a nice resource library to reference vs being out there trying to figure everything out yourself.
Equipment: IS400, IS6000, VLS 6.60, LS100, HP4550, Ricoh GX e3300n, Hotronix STX20
Software: Adobe Suite & Gravostyle 5
Business: Trophy, Awards and Engraving