[takeda]

Apache doesn't use XML, its configs actually predate XML.

Yes, Apache configs are confusing, but it's not due to them being in a HTML-like style, and I suspect same thing would happen even if they had similar syntax Nginx.

IMO the problem is that Apache is extremely modular and every little piece was split into a separate module. There are many modules that are pretty much essential. It doesn't help that the example Apache config then comes with many not essential modules enabled.

One time I was motivated to just have Apache run only things that are necessary. I started without any modules and each time config complained that something is missing, I read documentation about it and either enabled it, or removed from the config. It took me quite a while. And I know people (in fact that is a vast majority) who would never bother to do that. Because of that Nginx looks attractive out of the box, because by default you don't need any modules to have a basic server.

Similarly this is also the reason why people also moved from Sendmail to Postfix. Sendmail doesn't use XML but it also has a steeper learning curve to correctly configure it.