Nice, it sounds like we should update the documentation recommendation then! Could you file and docs issue about XML Processing Modules — Python 3.12.0 documentation pointing at this thread?
My writing “stale” was intentional snark. It means both stable and stale. =)
The larger point behind that is that the standard library is not a great place for libraries in need for major overhaul or evolution because users write code that depends on all APIs and behaviors, limiting what changes we can make without causing disruption, and users often need better things long before they’ll be able to upgrade their Python runtime. So when possible it is often better to look for externally maintained modules from PyPI. Which is why we sometimes link to external things.
Those evolve though, so any time our recommendation doesn’t seem great, updating it makes sense.