I prefer OPENXML. I think it is easy to then use WHERE, JOIN, and ORDER BY clauses. Using the data in the article, it would look like this:

Declare @xml XML, @idoc int

SET @xml = N'

'

EXEC sp_xml_preparedocument @idoc OUTPUT, @xml

SELECT Name, Salary FROM OPENXML (@idoc, '/ROWS/ROW', 1)

WITH (Name varchar(50), Salary int)

WHERE Salary >= 1500

ORDER BY Name