I asked some rude questions about SOAP today, and I'm pretty pleased with the answers I've had back.

Paul Prescod largely concurred with my worries (and he wrote a very nice bit on SOAP/WSDL and state issues earlier), so I figure I'm not completely cracked.

Mark Baker had a more precise list of what SOAP adds to XML messaging, which pretty neatly outlines what I'll be looking for in my next rereading of the specification, and Mike Champion offered a lukewarm endorsement of the "SOAP value proposition" that somewhat matches Mark's but also fits in the "everybody's doing it" category of answers.

I mentioned in a later message that I look at SOAP from a markup perspective, sort of the way a plumber might look at a building and its pipes. It's occurred to me since writing it that my largest concern isn't the different viewpoints of plumbers, contractors, and inhabitants. My largest concern is that there appears to be nothing in technology currently which resembles a building code inspector.

Lack of building inspectors seems like more reason to go with open source - at least you can do your own inspection, if you know what you're doing.