Search Appliance SBE
The SOAP interface provides functionality very similar to the "XML output" search interface. So why use one as opposed to the other?
Use SOAP if the language you are writing has a SOAP interface available for you. Many languages and environments (including Visual Studio) provide SOAP tools, where you provide the WSDL to the webservice, and it will generate "wrapper" classes for you, allowing you to interact with the Search Appliance as if it were simply a local function.
If whatever development environment you're using doesn't have a real SOAP interface, then use the XML API instead of the SOAP API. All the added information/rules of SOAP that make it easy for programs to exchange data will instead make it more cumbersome to use manually.