Build Automation and solution management via source control has made great strides over the evolution of the product but still faces a hurdle in that the solutions themselves are composed of XML which leaves a lot to be desired from our customers in regards to human-readability. A straight port over to JSON or YAML would better things greatly but I also feel that there is a fair amount of bloat in the XML (not in terms of what is needed to deploy but what is needed for a human to understand what changes are being committed) that could be abstracted away from what developers work with in their day to day. Working with more modern data transfer / deployment standards (JSON / YAML) could lead to more efficient and faster tooling for solution import/export as an added benefit.

Most of the time when I show solution packager to customers, they are initially impressed but then groan when they are presented with comparing commits of bloated XML to try to find what the changes are. And I don't blame them for that sentiment, it's 2020.