[userbinator]

XML and many other things related to it (including Java, SOAP, CORBA, etc.) are an example of what could be called "Enterprise mindset" taken to an extreme. Insanely high levels of abstraction and indirection, absurd amounts of needless flexibility and generality, and essentially zero thought given to efficiency or simplicity. It's as if the people responsible for these spent all their time thinking "what's the most complicated way to do something?"