I thought about the idea of storing the XML in a session variable, but thought it would cause more performance issues then the text files. This method would work, but if you have a lot of concurrent users, they are all gonna be lugging around this string of XML data, even when they go to a different application on the site. Also, even if they leave the site, the session remains (20 min is default), and that means there string of data remains 20 more minutes. This is why you hear a lot of people say "Session Variables are Evil."

Now, if you have very few concurrent users, and you somehow get rid of the session variable when they leave the application (meaning they don't need the XML anymore), you can avoid this. But I am not sure it is worth the trouble. Any thoughts?