[10ren]

Thanks. The long-term trajectory of programming tools seem to favour developer ease over raw efficiency, as computers get faster but programmers don't (though possibly this might change as Moore's Law diverts from speed increases to multi-core).

Therefore, XML became more popular than ASN.1. I think the successor to XML (and SOAP etc) will be more human-friendly than XML, rather than more efficient.

That's not to say that extremely efficient techniques don't have a place (they do) or they're not cool (they are).