Or, if we prefer, we can spend our time on endless iterations of this thread, stewing in our own greatness and wondering why it is that people from cut-and-paste coders to well-respected consultants don't grasp the power and beauty that is the XML family of specifications.

That last is unfortunately a permathread here.  I should stop poking at it - the battle seems pretty much lost to me in any case, at least as far as the XML moniker goes.  I just don't love the toxins it periodically produces, as here.

Actually as the OP I can tell you that wasn't the reason I started this thread. 

Paul Graham wrote a review of the book SICP that included  the following quote.

"Kenneth Clark said that if a lot of smart people have liked something that you don't, you should try and figure out what they saw in it."

If you read the original post and parse it as intended it will read as follows. 

" .... if a lot of smart people are building and using tools to parse  XML in other languages and you don't think that is a good idea, you should try and figure out why they are doing so."

While I value the discussion that has ensued, strictly viewed through the prism of what I actually wanted to know , I could have stopped at the very first answer that was provided by Oliver Jeulin.