I also have a love and hate relationship with XML configuration files. The key, IMO, is to understand what configurations are really going to be performed by the operations people and externalize only that into XML (or in some cases a properties file).
I have seen many examples of people (I have done it in the past too) moving to XML configuration files for things that are really part of the app design and would only be changed by the programmer in a new release cycle. In some extreme cases it gets to a point where people are almost pseudo coding in XML loosing all the static typing that comes naturally with Java and introducing additional layers of complexity. However, more to the point, I will second Sean in reserving my judgement until I see the proposed XML based configuration. yuri
