No reason not to build directly on the current VS "regime" that is comparable to the interface in Illustrator:
[image: 1770683932446-26b64e2d-ecfe-4d2c-8bc5-69a9942e641f-image.png]
Here, Illustrator wins on visual simplicty, though. I can only imagine the VS icons can be simplyfied a bit too. A plus sign in a single square icon is all we need.
Sublayer? I dunno, just as gymspiration:
[image: 1770684790138-5771e636-20d5-4f4e-aa7f-3a1d123b3800-image.png] [image: 1770685047298-30c9259d-a7f3-4998-a7af-99f19d585a66-image.png] [image: 1770685170190-6678b144-4202-4eee-a19f-d737131f871c-image.png]
BTW icon tooltip says new sublayer, right click menu create layer inside.