At a previous company we did a lot with XML and XSLT. Both XML and XSLT big.
Yes there is a learning curve, but then you have a powerful tool to handle XML. And you can even use XSLT on XSLT (which can sometimes be useful).
Performance is also an issue (with very large XML) but you can tackle that by using smart XSLT and do some preprocessing with the (generated) XML.
Anybody with knowledge of XSLT can change the apearance of the finished product because it is not compiled.
