Comment by rakoo

As much as I can agree that XML doesn't prevent user adoption, it may very well prevent developer adoption; if developers are not willing to bother with XML or any part of the protocol, they may very well give up and develop for some other platform.

Yes, that may sound futile, but in the end the developers are the people who build everything. It is my strong belief that HTTP, IRC, SMTP and bittorrent (among others) have thrived because of their utter simplicity, to the point we're embarassed today because we've ended up with so much under-specified crap on top of them. Still, they deliver. As always "worse is better".