hoping someone is following this thread..
i have the same issue ..
on a PC, Illustrator CS5 .. have deleted my entire Adobe Illustrator CS5.1 Settings folder and had it regenerated .. but still can’t resize a drawn object without it distorting.
text resizes fine, but
i have drawn a circle, using the outline color only, no fill.
i have added some effects .. blur and shadow.
if i try to transform to a smaller dimension (using % or bounding box handles), the circle becomes thicker
i have uploaded a visual showing this..

this is driving me crazy 🙂
any suggestions appreciated.
thank you