XML is nasty, but at least it's nasty in standardised ways. I've definitely worked with worse (e.g. Cadence DEF files).

The lag should be regarded as intolerable, but instead it's routine. I shouldn't have to wait for computers like this.

Shell is a nice idea, but UNIX should either have banned whitespace in filenames or made the shell handle it properly. It's amazing how many things blow up on encountering a space, and you can upset people even further by putting newlines in your file names.