In most cases, XML Parser will be much slower both in terms of development and execution, mainly because you need to write / execute tons of userland PHP code to navigate / read your document.
In some cases, you may find some improvement with XMLReader (not sure about XML Parser), but cost is extra development time and more complicated maintenance. Since the application already uses SimpleXML and uses only 250KB, your time will most likely be better spent on other areas of your application. 500 ms is enough for XML processing with SimpleXML, you should profile this topic and / or publish your most processor-intensive procedure in another issue for optimization.
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