[SNIP]
>It's a double-edged sword that I have control over how the data is passed (because I control both ends) I get to have it the way I want it, but I also have to decide how I want it.

If you control both sides, then it does not have to follow "industry standards" or the flavor of the month. XML is good for many things but not the best thing since sliced bread < g >

Therefore you could use whatever suits your purposes, from flat files to dbfs. I have a data transfer-scenario between a production server and a web-server where FTP is allowed only one-way and within a time-window. The file I transfer is a ZIP (with DynaZIP) containing a couple of dbs. It turned out to be the easiest, smallest and fastest, when XML was considered. Importing a DBF is faster than XML for a pure-VFP app anyways < g >