For me, one of the true advancements of JSON/YAML over XML is how its features are orthogonal to each other
I don't have to ask "should this be a tag property, or a subtag"?
Which, to your point, isn't to say that YAML is "good", but I think there was at least an advancement through minimalism.
Right tool for the job. I think XML is too much tool for most jobs, but there's a huge gap between JSON/YAML and XML, so in 99% of cases I'd rather err on the "too much" side.
Which, to your point, isn't to say that YAML is "good", but I think there was at least an advancement through minimalism.