And even if we rely only on XML, we get the DOM and hierarchical structures. If we forbid those, we have <svg><object /><object /><object /></svg> as a file format and people will look weird because their other SVG won't be supported in there.
Your second point is actually valid though. If the TinyVG format takes advantage of non-tree based data-structures, I can certainly understand the motivation. I have a hard time conceptualizing how a tree based format would be beneficial to a vector format, other than describing metadata about certain "areas" of the image.
All of these would be fine if XML offered you some really good advantage over alternatives, but as far as I can see, it doesn't. It just eats up CPU/memory/bandwith/keystrokes for no reason.
All of these properties contradict a embedded world where you can render vector graphics from 32k RAM on a chip that doesn't even have enough memory for a framebuffer itself.
Also implementation complexity of XML is so high that i gave up on impementing a correct parser. I don't want to have a half-assed parser that cannot parse XML, but only "XML light" and making this is a huge amount of work which i don't want to waste in my leisure time
Why? Streaming/evented (e.g., SAX) parsing for XML is as old as XML.
It’s reached meme status. I think most people conflate complex XML-based _formats_ (e.g., WSDL, XSD) with XML _the format_. The rules of XML parsing can fit on a notecard. And a basic parser that supports all the core functionality plus namespaces is really not that complicated to implement. Now, implementing schema validation, Xlink, etc. in your parser is definitely not simple. But to make a simple XML parser those are optional bits.
Yes, but SVG requires a lot of those optional bits... A parser complex enough to deal with all the nooks and corners of SVG is not simple at all.
Semi-structured data is not bad. Namespaces are not bad. Schema are not bad. In fact, I also on the other hand very much lament that XML's backlash lead us to JSON, which is entirely untyped semi-structured data where everyone has to write an (often buggy and incomplete) ad-hoc typechecker for every single document.
Those features are not the problem, the problem is that they are embedded in the SGML-borne XML, that has many weird and intricate corners that only make sense in light of its history, and that lead to complex parsing, obscure behavior, and lots of potential for vulnerabilities--in the parsers or in code that just uses a (perhaps in itself safe) parser. DTDs, Entities, and Processing Instructions are just some of the more known warts.