>What was the point of XML again?

To give a short answer: eXtensible Markup Language. It's not meant to only store/transfer data for foxpro cursors.

Or from the other side: XMLTOCURSOR is not meant to convert any XML to a foxpro cursor.

What you have here is a soap message, from which I guess this is a result of a web service request.
Have you played with "XML Web Services" of VFP's Task Pane?

Bye, Olaf.