Jeremy Esland has convinced me that XML is the answer to many of the data problems I am encountering in a variety of projects. The more I learn about XML, the more I'm sure it's the answer.
In a related side-note, Jeremy also introduced me to the eXist project. eXist is a powerful XML storage and retrieval solution that can be run and accessed in a variety of ways.
Now if I could just get my .NET code to retrieve some documents from eXist...