I love how some technologies cause some folks to get hostile ... HTML and XML are very close cousins in the same markup family.

On the basis of correct usage (e.g. not insane application of XML to corner cases) I don't fully understand the logic of people who profess love for HTML and hatred of XML, they are in the same family. The only difference is that HTML (now)is a controlled vocabulary, eventually folks will want to add markup of their own design w/o committee discussing the merits.

Perhaps next decade ;)