XLinq Bitter Words, Part I - XML functional construction

XLinq is new and hot technology everybody seems to be happy with. I`m going to post a different review series - not what I like, but what I dislike and want to be fixed in XLinq. Sorry in advance for bitter words, but it`s better when your friend says them.

XML functional construction

XML Tree functional construction is a great stuff and definitely a big improvement over the upside down DOM-style XML building. I only wanted to note that one doesn`t have to wait years for C# 3.0 to be able to build XML tree in a natural top-down way, that was actually possible from the very beginning (here is .NET 2.0 sample, in .NET 1.X one would need XmlNodeWriter):

    XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();    
    XmlWriter w = doc.CreateNavigator().AppendChild();
    w.WriteStartElement("contacts");
      w.WriteStartElement("contact");
        w.WriteElementString("name", "Patrick Hines");
        w.WriteStartElement("phone");
          w.WriteAttributeString("type", "home");
          w.WriteString("206-555-0144");
        w.WriteEndElement();
        w.WriteStartElement("phone");
          w.WriteAttributeString("type", "work");
          w.WriteString("425-555-0145");
        w.WriteEndElement();
        w.WriteStartElement("address");
          w.WriteElementString("street1", "123 Main St");
          w.WriteElementString("city", "Mercer Island");
          w.WriteElementString("state", "WA");
          w.WriteElementString("postal", "68042");
        w.WriteEndElement();
      w.WriteEndElement();
    w.WriteEndElement();
    w.Close();

Ergo - please don`t repeat System.Xml mistakes and treat XmlWriter as a first class citizen - provide a way to build XDocument/XElement with XmlWriter, that will be good architecturally and will provide smoother migration from XmlDocument v2. E.g. what about providing an editable XPathNavigator over XElement or XDocument

To be continued...