I agree with you, XML does have tons of hype, I've talked to people that say they know it, but all they know is that it's "html but you define your own tags"...which is wrong, there's SO much more to it. It's a very valuable tool to use. I use it for almost everything I do now, from web applications to config files. It's so valuable, and the parsers allow you to focus on the data itself, not getting it.

On a side note, I'd be willing to write some XSLT stylesheets that would transform a playlist into an html file if there was an outcry for them.