This was exactly the point addressed in the OP. Quote:
* SGML is a good idea when the markup overhead is less than 2%. Even attributes is a good idea when the textual element contents is the "real meat" of the document and attributes only aid processing*
In your example where you want to add a small amount of markup to a large amount of text, SGML wins. JSON is a worse choice for such cases.
It seems to me that we have collectively solved these problems, which is why we have both JSON and XML. Naggum was right when he said that XML was being applied incorrectly, and Douglas Crockford solved the problem by introducing JSON.
* SGML is a good idea when the markup overhead is less than 2%. Even attributes is a good idea when the textual element contents is the "real meat" of the document and attributes only aid processing*
In your example where you want to add a small amount of markup to a large amount of text, SGML wins. JSON is a worse choice for such cases.
It seems to me that we have collectively solved these problems, which is why we have both JSON and XML. Naggum was right when he said that XML was being applied incorrectly, and Douglas Crockford solved the problem by introducing JSON.