* XML has a formal, class-based description language (XML Schema) with strong typing, polymorphism, and - best of all - self-descriptiveness.

* Languages like Java have a seamless, bidirectional mapping to XML Schema.

* XML has a rediculously powerful and elegant transformation language (XSLT) which makes scraping, selective data extraction and processing trivial.

The problem with XML is that people who require instant satisfaction are not willing to invest the time to understand it, and the mature tooling ecosystem around it.

The XML ecosystem solves problems, and contains solutions to problems, that the JSON / JavaScript ecosystem can only dream of, and is hell-bent on partially re-inventing.

If you need strong-typing and self-descriptiveness, you're out of luck with JSON. Binding JSON to a strong-typed language like Java or Haskell is a total ball-drag compared to XML + Schema.