It's quite fashionable these days to hate xml configuration, and abandoning xml seems to be the way even Spring development is going (Java Config, spring-boot, etc). However, I've found some good points with it too. When you have less java code and more xml, it is often faster to come up to speed on a new spring project because the xml more quickly describes how the project is integrated - maintenance and tweaks can often be more straightforward. In contrast, Java code and annotations often feel friendlier for the actual process of developing.

I do think I prefer the java way more, because it's a bit easier to debug. But once I have some solid java code, I can be tempted to lift out 30 lines of code if it has an analogous 5 lines of xml config.