This is a good sign: Google is backing away from SOAP:

As of December 5, 2006, we are no longer actively supporting the SOAP Search API. We encourage you to use the AJAX Search API instead.

I really like the way this is described here:

It won't happen at once, it wont be overnight, but one day SOAP will be over. We will look back and wonder "what were we thinking". It will be up there with ActiveX, EJB2, and other things that we will describe as mistakes that should never have made it past the powerpoint stage.

The WWI reference is perhaps a bit overdone...