Yes, the outcome should be the same. Personally I tend to use XSL for XML modifications because I know it and it worked well for me in the past.

Just checked the thread with Strong from March, I actually suggested the same back then, but he apparently went for the event reader approach. Surely good to do it similarly here then. There may be limitations with this appraoch if the structures of the different document versions significantly differ, but that's not the case here.