Using Dan's method of building the root tag manually, I got everything to work with the path() command as well. It's really just a "Nested FOR XML Query" (that's the title of the bol entry) which looks something like this:

SELECT getDate() as '@timestamp',

(select name as '@name', xtype as 'data/@xtype'

from sysobjects

for xml path('object'), type

)

FOR XML PATH('root')

Thanks for the help!

--Adam