signer start fragile w.r.t. signconf syntax

While experimenting with .signconf files, I noticed that XML syntax errors go undetected during "ods-signer sign" and "ods-signer update".  Then, when restarting the Signer, it will fail fatally and I'm note sure what this means to the processing of the .signconf file.  This would seem to be more fragile than it should be, and could lead to troublesome situations when errors in .signconf go undetected.