You are quite right to point out that this is a programming task and nobody has justified why XML has been chosen. The idea of having a BPEL layer is of course persuasive. If it appears as a visual interface, you can argue it doesn't matter what intermediate representation exists underneath but usually it helps to see the underlying code to check the system is doing what you thought you asked. Also you can often cut and paste things better in text form than with a graphical editor. My concern is XML is an OK idea for certain types of data message and happens to work well for web pages but people seem to think it is somehow magic. I just don't see what you're getting by using XML for BPEL.