>I'm gonna play a bit of devil's advocate here and ask why I would want to go to the trouble of moving data back and forth via XML, SOAP, etc. across the net when an ODBC connection to a remote SQL Server database via TCP-IP works very well - as does DCOM.

XML/SOAP aims to increase interoperability between different platforms and applications. It's not designed to replace native and proprietary interfaces and communication processes: the associated overhead won't let it be effective under a fully self-contained environment in which there are better, faster and more efficient ways to exchange information and execute processes. If, on the contrary, there are open doors in this environment (at the server or client level) I think it is the most efficient way of providing/getting data and control, considering its wide dissemination and - to a great extent - tight normalization.