Just out of curiosity, do you guys use a mouse or drawing pen with Inkscape. I used to use a mouse but it broke so now I'm using my drawing pen but I find it's easier to work in Inkscape with a mouse. Not that I'm not used to using a pen, I use it in my other graphics programs but for Inkscape drawing I prefer the mouse so I was just wondering if it's just me or in fact it is easier manipulating objects in a vector program with a mouse.

Currently working with a ridiculously small 83mm/33mm/33mm sized mouse.
As long as the scroll wheel works fine, it can take the job well.

It might depend of pen settings / sensitivity, buttons.... Perhaps, you could adjust your pen preferences and save a profile which would then fit your needs in Inkscape? Still, it`s possible to manipulate zoom by pen but it`s a lot easier with the scroll wheel, and I use that one a lot.

*hint
"+" and "-" on NumPad could be of some help for zooming and if paired with zoom settings in Inkscape it can be a real treat for pen users.

I've tried with a tablet, but for Inkscape I prefer a mouse. I find a tablet easier to use in a bitmap program such as The GIMP, but most of my work in Inkscape consists of panning around, zooming in and out, and changing a few nodes or handles. For that I prefer to have a scroll wheel/middle button, so the mouse wins.

Recent versions of Inkscape have become so good at tablet support that it's possible to use both and switch back and forth without having to restart or even worse having the program crash. If you use the calligraphy tool (pen) or the pencil a lot, the tablet wins totally. If you use the bezier tool and a lot of node editing the mouse is a bit more handy. In any case you should map middle button to one of the pen buttons - I have reassigned the buttons to be tip=leftclick, button1=rightclick and button2=middleclick. The default mappings usually assign doubleclick to one button which is not nearly as useful in Inkscape.