The difference between REST and SOAP is how you expose your api via HTTP; with a RESTful approach, you should expose clean URLs that will be accessed via http methods expressing their original meaning (i.e. GET will only fetch a resource, not trigger side-effects; creation operations will use POST; etc etc). This usually results in simple interfaces that can be accessed directly with basic http libraries and don't necessarily rely on XML. The point of REST is that any http client will be able to access your API; wrapping libraries like the one you provide are completely optional.
Developers prefer REST for this reason: it's much easier than SOAP (where you invariably have to rely on wrapping libraries you don't understand) and doesn't introduce any dependency on libraries. If you intend on forcing customers to use a wrapping library anyway, then it doesn't really matter what you choose, because you're completely hiding the http layer anyway. Doing it "the REST way" would mean you just document your http interfaces and make the wrapper completely optional, while maintaining simplicity.