MC:  “…at this point it seems likely that XML itself will get buried in the rubble if the XSD towers are pulled down”

Most of us glossed right past that statement.  Are you saying that resistance to XML itself is serious enough that changing the internal schema machinery or providing support for an alternative would be costly enough or just enough friction to get the world wide web of users, buyers, sellers and developers to adopt another data interchange syntax? 

Is that FUD?  Is that speculation based on some other as yet undebated alternative such as JSON?  Is this a serious discussion inside Redmond or elsewhere?

len