My experience suggests XSLT has its merits but healthy scepticism is useful. We've discussed XSLT, templating and related issues many times here: you'll find interesting material by typing XSLT, templating and other similar words into the search box at the top of each page. I recommend the discussion in XSLT vs Templating?, XSLT vs Templating, Part 2 and Why is Perl so bad with XML? as a starting point.