XML is great as a structured interoperable data format for machines to read. It is also conveniently human readable (most of the time) when highly ineffiecient processing or generation is required. It is first and foremost designed to machine consumption though, and it works pretty darned tootin well at that.
Maybe we just shouldn't be requiring human manipulated XML everywhere. There are a ton of formats and languages which are more human parseable. Let the confusor do the work and insert the angle brackets -- and use it when talking to other confusors.