I have a proposal that I'm sure will make EVERYBODY happy by combining the best of both worlds!

How about "J4X" (JSON for XML), that lets you embed XML in JSON the same way the ever-popular "E4X" (ECMAScript for XML) lets you embed XML in ECMAScript?

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Web/E4X

J4X Example:

    <!DOCTYPE j4x PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD J4X 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/j4x/DTD/j4x-1.0-transitional.dtd">
    {
        april: <fools late="13 days"/> <!-- sorry! -->
    }