Tags in the XML that aren't in the Schema???

[AIAndy]

Unfortunately antidotil evidence from other mods suggests otherwise. They report noticable improvement in game loading when using the standard format with all tags than the WoC format where most tags are optional.

While I can't say for sure because the XML engine is not in the DLL, at the start of the reading of each info class the code hashes the children which should make it very cheap if one is not present and the default value is passed to each such function call explicitely or implicitely.