>Out of the 10 or 12 times i've needed to expose a service over the web, SOAP turned out to be the best solution only twice.

If you don't mind sharing, what were the two and why did they stand apart?

>I think that the industry as a whole is latching on to SOAP without paying enough attention to what it's costing, and Google's decision to use SOAP instead of a simple GET is a prime example.

Well, as Web Services mature, the need to move from Simple Object Access to Complex Object Access over the wire shoudl increase. I'm thinking transactions and discoverability in particular here.

Right now, for our first dabblings, I agree with what you say. To much for too little.