With XML, is the Time Right for Hierarchical DBs?

DullTrev asks: "The hierarchical database model existed before the far more familiar relational model. Hierarchical databases were blown away by relational versions because it was difficult to model a many-to-many relationship - the very basis of the hierarchical model is that each child element has only one parent element. However, we now live in a web world that demands quick access to a variety of data on a variety of platforms. XML is being used to facilitate this, and XML has, of course, a hierarchical structure." Do you think a hierarchical database would really be a better answer for storing XML data over the existing relational counterparts?

"There have been some pushes to create pure XML databases (info on XML in connection to databases is here and info on XML database products is here) with claims that as they support XML natively, they can offer many advantages over relation databases.

Some of these claims include speed, better handling of audio, graphic and other digital files, easier administration, and handling of unexpected elements. Software AG, a German firm, produce and sell a suite of XML products, including Tamino, a native XML database. They have lots of information on why they think there database is great, not surprisingly, but no benchmarks. So, do the Slashdot community think that with XML the time has come for hierarchical databases? Or is it better simply to use a relational database that can output in XML, or script your way to achieve the same goal?"

Comments

Source and migration (a digression)

[Improv]

I would suspect that companies/people who run
Unix would like that faster chip, as Unix is quite
portable. I have 2 Alphas, 3 PCs, a NeXT, and my
laptop is an iBook, all of them running Unix.
At work, I manage various flavors of Unix, many on
non-x86 hardware. But I digress..