Using XML Elements Versus Attributes to feed Gmaps

All the examples given for Gmaps being driven by XML use the following
format:

<marker item1='value' item2='value' ... />

This is problematic when you want to include HTML code in your
attributes. Is it possible to use elements rather than attributes in
XML to drive Gmaps? The example HTML would look like this:

<marker>
<item1>value</item1>
<item2>value</item2>
...
</marker>

I don't see any examples of anyone doing this. Is this a design
decision?

Bryan