and take a look at Net::Jabber this time because it uses XML::Stream for it's reading/writing sockets. (and not because you are reinventing it =P)

from what i gleaned from your other posts i think you do need to wrap your messages in a top-level node like:

<data>
  <stuff>whatever goes here</stuff>
  <to>server</to>
  <from>client</from>
</data>
[download]

if you want to make things easier.

and you should check out the Jabber specs just because there's a lot of thought out XML in the specs (and the experimental specs) for things like queries/messages/presence and just about anything else you could think of to pass through an XML message router.