Exactly. Xpath is great. Also, being able to have as many types of closing tags as you want to define, makes it much easier to visually parse what is going on i

Exactly. Xpath is great. Also, being able to have as many types of closing tags as you want to define, makes it much easier to visually parse what is going on in a complex data structure. That alone has a ton of value. I am still struggling for the right mix of highlighters and tools to work in various formats/languages, due to the opacity of closing structures like }]}]];. Now, there is a trade off in more complex paths to interoperability with Uncle Joe and his DTD. It is still easier than trying to parse some convoluted json coming from yet another api that the dev team never dogfed a day in their life - because you can jump levels so precisely in xpath due to those verbose types and attributes. So as to XML verbosity at least, which for many appears to be the main complaint, for me it is worth it when done right.