Sorry, let me better explain myself.

I agree with you that AJAX is an implementation of passing data via xml.
However, generally the reason people use ajax is so that their website will resemble a Desktop application. That is pretty much the point of passing the xml data within the form as opposed to making a request to another server and then reloading the whole page.

Flash is capable of doing the same exact thing. The benefit would be that if you use flash, you don't have to worry about writing cross browser compatible effects as you would in javascript. Now I know that there are libraries like scriptaculous that greatly aid in the development of user interfaces along with ajax support. But at the end of the day, I just don't see any real benefits in using Javascript + Html + Ajax vs Flash. Both can pass xml documents. Both can handle guis although I am biased towards Flash when it comes to the feasibility of designing a user interface. As long as your browser is fairly new, it should support the ajax XmlRequestObject control. However the same argument can be made for Flash. Almost every browser now comes with the Flash plugin as a standard. I just don't see what the advantage is of choosing the html + javascript + ajax method.

Sorry, I am not trying to create a war or anything. I am just very curious as to why it would be better to go the route of html + ajax vs flash route. Thanks in advance!