>Right, and here, if you're looking up line items on a supplier's site via XML and, say, Web Connection and FoxPro <g> I'd think XML is a good way to go. That's not EDI though.

True, it's not EDI ... you've in fact reengineered the business process. But that was the point; don't just look at EDI and replace it with an equivalent XML process and think you've improved things.

>But it was a lot of work and we suffered by being ahead of the curve in more ways than you'd think.<

Procedural languages were partly to blame. It's easier to build and maintain complex applications using OOP.