Gotcha, I was thinking more in terms of JSON as a serialization / interchange format (given the OP), rather than use cases such as the one you describe above.

Gotcha, I was thinking more in terms of JSON as a serialization / interchange format (given the OP), rather than use cases such as the one you describe above. To clarify: no, I do not believe that JSON is universally better than XML. I believe JSON is better than XML for the majority of use cases where people are currently using JSON today, esp. as an interchange format.