I actually like the .application format. It's nice because it's just an XML file that the end-customer's computer knows what to do with it. At my company we'v

I actually like the .application format. It's nice because it's just an XML file that the end-customer's computer knows what to do with it. At my company we've actually created an ASP.NET MVC application that dynamically constructs and serves the .application file on a per-user basis. This easily allows us to do canary releasing or beta previews. We're very happy with it, and so are our customers and stakeholders.