OTOH, if you call it "serialized data", it sounds less scary, and most people will realize they do this often. (YAML, Data::Dumper, etc, are all examples of creators of compound aka serialized data).

None of your examples have me get worried and regard compound data as something evil. Your article just says "Yup, compound data has its uses. At other times, it's not the right thing." But that's true for almost anything.