Thank Java and overcooked configuration files - everyone hates XML because it did too much for what it was being used for. And yet html is precisely xml, with attached rendering rules and a dialect, but nevertheless it doesn't garner as much hatred as XML.

For complex object description it excels - as anyone who has used a complex UI description language knows, the 'lite' Json, yml, insert hipster conf file format here face a myriad of problems in description that they only somewhat make up for in simplicity.

It is the flaw of misattributation of Occams rule to everything - simplicity is indeed efficient but it cannot account for complexity, and the world ends up a complex place.