I know it is rather heated question. But anyway I'd like to hear opinions of those in Stackoverflow. Given that XML support is quite good in SQL Server 2005/2008, and there's no concern about database independency, why one need Linq-to-SQL, Entity Framework, NHibernate and the likes, which are quite complex and awkward in advanced use-cases, if by using POCOs, XmlSerializer, and stored procedures which process XML, one can achieve a lot less complex middle-tier? For reference, see the link: http://weblogs.asp.net/jezell/archive/2007/04/13/who-needs-orm-i-ve-got-sql-2005.aspx