I'm using Inkscape instead of xfig for drwaing graphics.

However, there's also TikZ -- a LaTeX package that takes the descriptive approach to graphics: You describe what you want and get almost always a very nice picture that fits perfectly with the rest of your LaTeX document:

http://www.texample.net/tikz/examples/

TikZ comes with an amazingly good manual:

http://tug.ctan.org/tex-archive/graphics/pgf/base/doc/generi...

I knew about pgf, in fact I've made learning it my new year's resolution. It is indeed amazing. I didn't know the texample.net website though, thanks.