Which do you prefer and why? I am looking into getting one of them to use the vector art piece of the software and am wondering which to get.

I have both but almost always use CorelDraw.  It's much more user friendly.  But, it's also what I had first and am used to.  I don't know Illustrator that well.  I've been told that Illustrator is more for graphic designers and CorelDraw is more for joe average.  That'd be me!