However, Serialization does not handle arbitrary (simple) XML, AFAIK.
1. Why do you care? What difference does it make what is the format of the permanent storage you are uging for your configuration. You are not going to edit this manualy anyway.
Why not? Hand-editing of configuration files is a common Unix tradition to paraphrase one of the previous posters. Plus XML, I believe, is meant to be very much hand-editable. Otherwise what would be its adavantage over any binary format?
2. If you insist you could always implement your own format SimpleXML instead of reinventing the wheel.
I think implementing your own format looks very much like reinventing the wheel. You could also rewrite all the world's software in asm, or implement your own version of C++, but why would you do that if property_tree can do what you need in several lines of code? Best regards, Marcin