I have not used the XL2 yet... however, I do have a few comments based on what I saw of it at the workshop with Roy on Saturday.
It appears that they've done very little with the body design, sticking with their slightly dog-legged design... a design with I did not enjoy the few times I actually had to work with an XL1.
There is a noticable change in image quality, for the better... and the addition of 16x9 CCD's are a nice change... however, to me it's a small improvement over the XL1 seeries.
It has been suggested by others, and I would tend to agree with them... that the changes made for the XL-2 would have been better on the XL-1s. It certainly would have been nice to see Cannon come out with much more to boast than the 20x lens, 16x9 CCD's & higher pixel resolution... perhaps, however, I am being too hard on them... as the development & implementation of new technologies is somewhat of a rocket science... Though, with Sony's announcement of their HDV camera boasting 1080i compressed onto Mini-DV tape it makes me want to wait and see what Panasonic will release next so that all three front runners can be compared directly.