> Every anti bloat HNer should be cheering

Actually a transformation system can reduce bloat, as people don't have to write their own crappy JavaScript versions of it.

Being XML the syntax is a bit convoluted, but behind that is a good functional (in sense of functional programming language, not functioning) system which can be used for templating etc.

The XML made it a bit hard to get started and anti-XML-spirit reduced motivation to get into it, but once you know it, it beats most bloaty JavaScript stuff in that realm by a lot.