I only meant to show the two characters that would be escaped when casting to the XML data type.

Thanks for the code samples Solomon. I ran a few tests and the one difference between the XML data type and the FOR XML techniques that I saw as important to note is that the XML data type will not show the actual text in all cases, i.e. it escapes the left-angle bracket and ampersand characters as < and & respectively, which could prove to disqualify its usage some scenarios:

As a side note, I did find the problem with the particular text that was tripping up the FOR XML method I showed above (code since amended)...I copied an incomplete code sample from sp_WhoIsActive and this is a lesson to me. I have added the code to my SQL Prompt snippets so I do not miss the TYPE again. In neglecting to provide TYPE in the FOR XML clause I left out the secret sauce that handles the escapable characters and delivers them as they exist in the text, as well as prevents them from causing XML parsing errors.