The reason for using illustrator was some pre-planning to take the vector artwork to a laser cutter, which is the format that it requires. Sketchup isn't really intended to be a precise 2D cad program when it comes to rendering files out to 2d models, so I was basically using the tools that I knew I would ultimately need to produce artwork with in order to get to the end result i was planning for. Sketchup is incredibly powerful and I wouldn't give it up for anything, but combined with illustrator, oof. it's just that much more powerful. 