Base your XMLs on Objects, Not What is Human Readable

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/rlucero/archive/2012/04/12/quick-aside-on-xml-the-wrong-way-to-use-xml.aspx

I keep running into this time and time again. Handcrafted XML files end up being more difficult to maintain and serialize all for the benefit of being 'human readable'. XML shouldn't be something people should hand edit.

If you have a system or libraries that can parse the XML efficiently then you can leverage that XML across more tools and products.