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While I realize this is the 'right' way to do things, I have a concern that we're talking about 4-5 function calls just to get to the actual logic. That 'seems' to me to be excessive overhead. And we're talking about thousands upon thousands of hits a day. Is this a good design, or do the levels of abstraction need to be reduced?
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I agree that this seems to be an excessive amount of overhead. Scaleability is going to be an issue in a high Tx environment..

Why not have the following tiers:

Data Services: Handles the core CRUD data operations. Sends and receives XML

Business Services: brokers access between UI and Data and encapsulates business rules. Sends and receives XML

UI: here is where you can split things off. One set of UI components can simple broker access to web forms and keep the XML intact. Another set of UI components can take the XML from the business services tier, fill a data set, and pass it to a windows form.

IMO, the right way is the one that achieves the proper balance between maintenance and performance. To find the right way, you may have to go through 3 or 4 iterations.

Question: where is Orefield, PA? I have heard of Oreland, which is in Montgomery County.