I remember Photoshop announcing this at MAX... all the audience cheered.
And then the update hit the desktops, smacked people who had work to do and skipped MAX, skipped release notes, just updated.
Photoshop then enabled it by default and forgot to give an option to toggle it. It was hellish.
Later a hack with a flag in separated config patch file was discovered and some torturing time after it got a proper toggle in Preferences...
...but instead of giving it a proper name and clear hint text, they called it Legacy Transform and never explained what it does. Rude, stupid, cruel.

I’m not against having this option in Ai — and I vote. But 1) it should be an option, 2) forever sticky, 3) clearly explained.
I don’t want it to be enabled by default, because I already have to make 49 steps each time I reinstall Ai (I mean it).

I have been holding down the Shift key to constrain proportions when resizing objects in Illustrator for a quarter of a century now. Possibly longer, I'm pretty sure I was doing it in Deluxe Paint back on my Amiga. Dan Silva probably swiped it from MacPaint.

But recently I've been using Moho, which flips it. Resizes are aspect-constrained by default in there. If you want to unlock the aspect ratio then you hold down Shift. And it's great. Because it turns out that 99% of the time what I want to do is to retain the aspect ratio. I'm *aware* of how much I hold down Shift when using the Scale or Free Transform tools and it's kind of absurd that I have to constantly enable this behavior.

Look, I know this is gonna be a controversial change. We've all been doing it the wrong way for half a lifetime. We're used to this backwards behavior. But ask yourself: just how often do I actually *want* to change a thing's aspect ratio when I size it?

Hack up a build of Illustrator that works the other way. See what people think. See how much hassle it would be to install a "no thank you I actually want unlocked aspect ratios when I size stuff 99% of the time" switch.

Also if you build this then please make sure it applies to the Scale tool, the Free Transform tool, AND the bounding box widgets, because only reversing the Shift key for ONE of these tools would be absolutely maddening :)

GET CORELDRAW: PROBLEM SOLVED

why on earth is this not even a feature?

This is literally used every time I do a transform for work.. Does the entire adobe community just always hold down the shift button all day?

This should be done as an option and not as the default unchangeable behavior, like Photoshop did at first (this was a nightmare).

agreed

Illustrator is not just for handful of artists who make illustrations. For everyone else objects are often times images, logos, other branding elements which must be resized keeping aspect ratio. It can be kept as an option in Preferences if locking ratio happens with/without shift key. With shift key option being off by default.

agree

Just looking for this myself its so annoying and its a feature on Photoshop so why not Illustrator?