I present to you this monstrosity: https://stackoverflow.com/q/39110233

Presumably they had an existing API, and then REST became all the rage, so they remapped the endpoints and simply converted the XML to JSON. What do you do with the <tag>value</tag> construct? Map it to the name `$`!

Congratulations, we're REST now, the world is a better place for it. Off to the pub to celebrate, gents. Ugh.

I think people tend to forget these things are tools, not shackles