I really would prefer to use XML for my next project, but self-censored myself so that if this project is ever open source and has other contributors, I'm not instantly dealing with hordes of users who want to convert it to json for data transfer objects.

Maybe it is because my baby duck syndrome came with xml web services and asp.net web forms, but it is amazing how much scaffolding and engineering work we threw away and are now reinventing. (Wsdl, schemas, etc)