Woodworking

Yes. It has several ways to accurately place design elements, group and combine or cut them, evenly distribute... You can also turn on a grid in the background for 2D or a perspective grid for isometric views. I've made instructions and plans for all sorts of things with Illustrator.

Yes, it's quite well suited to 2D plan drawing. I built an outdoor deck this summer that I first drew out completely to-scale in Illustrator, then used as reference during the build to easily retrieve the size and position of each board.

That said, it isn't a drafting package or a design aid per se, so there are no features specific to those functions, unless as Monika mentioned, you add those features in plugin form.

You might want to tell us some details about what you have in mind.

Also: what should keep you from doing it? You might need the plugin CADtools and also Illustrator won't do material calculations, but other than that ...