2.
However, Hunchentoot's RAW-POST-DATA returns only "2 1"...all of the
xml tag information is (apparently) discarded. Is there
a straightforward way to get anything a littler "rawer"?

Are you perhaps looking at the data in your browser? If so, have you tried 'view source'? (The browser will interpret the XML as messy HTML and not show tags... this has confused me in the past.)

Marijn